Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
HAMERNIK are committed to their care; who, more enlightened than the members of the Berlin Obstetrical Society, would laugh in derision at Virchow if he gave them a lecture on epidemic puerperal fever.” Hamernik. Just as Bamberger, professor of medicine at Würzburg, was influenced to take a feeble part in the discussion against Semmelweis, so Professor Hamernik of Prague also intervened. Hamernik had been selected by the authorities as a member of a Commission appointed at Scanzoni’s suggestion to inquire into the whole question of puerperal fever. The commission was appointed in 1849, and in i860 Semmelweis could write : This commission has ncft yet communicated to the world the solution of the riddle of puerperal fever.” Hamernik is only worth quoting because of one passage which forcibly illustrates one of the unscrupulous methods of opposing Semmelweis. “ We would now only call attention to the fact that nowhere is the fear of puerperal fever greater than in England and Russia, which is the result of the wide-spread and murderous epidemics which terrify the people and the medical profession in these countries. Yet in England and Russia for a long time past no autopsies have been made, and in England in particular the body of a puerpera is never opened.” Semmelweis replies : “ That it is a mistake to believe that England is specially afflicted with puerperal fever the public reports of English lying-in hospitals, which have been quoted, demonstrate. We have also explained why the mortality from puerperal fever is so small in England. If, in spite of this low mortality, English medical men have a greater fear of puerperal fever, that is only a proof that the English medical practitioners are more conscientious than they are in other countries.” This quotation from Hamernik is a fair example of his matter : circumscribed knowledge, reckless misstatement of facts, animus everywhere; yet there is always the 171
