Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
172 LIEBIG—ANSELM MARTIN unfailing patience in Semmelweis’s reply, enlightened occasionally with a touch of irony. Liebig. In support of his contention against Seyfert of Prague, Semmelweis appealed to the authority of Freiherr Gustav Liebig, the great chemist. Liebig says it is a fact that the cadaver in the dissecting room often reaches such a degree of decomposition that poison may be communicated to the blood of the living. The slightest wound from a dissecting scalpel has been known to produce a dangerous condition. . . . After quoting Skoda’s address to the Imperial Academy at Vienna in 1849, Liebig goes on to say : “From this address it incidentally appears how little has been the recognition outside of the Academy of this great, practically important, discovery. Certainly numerous causes of puerperal fever have been specified . . . but that which has been discovered by Dr. Semmelweis, with all the acumen of an unbiassed investigator, . . . cannot be doubted by any unprejudiced man. The only cause of puerperal fever is decomposed material : there are three sources of decomposed matter and one of these is the cadaver.” In reply to a question as to the reason for omitting this passage relating to the Semmelweis discovery from the next edition of his “Letters,” Liebig replied (March 21, 1859): “It was not because I do not as formerly appreciate the value of your experience, but because your discovery is now so widely known that there seemed to be no reason for retaining the passage. . . . Chloride of lime (Chlorkalk) undoubtedly possesses disinfectant properties.” Anselm Martin. Professor Anselm Martin, Director of the Lying-in Hospital of Munich, wrote in 1857, on the causes of epidemic puerperal fever (Monatsschrift f. Geburtskunde). Martin gave an account of an epidemic of puerperal fever which had broken out in the newly- constructed Lying-in Hospital at Munich in December, 1856, and continued till the end of June, 1857. The
