Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
184 PARIS ACADEMY this address he merely criticised: he stated no evidence of his own. He referred to the Doctrine of Semmelweis “ relating to the accidental propagation of puerperal fever by presumed inoculations” in these terms: “ Received in England with an ardour and a conviction which fortify my doubts as to the real importance of a certain number of documents relating to the propagation of puerperal fever by effluvia, this theory is probably forgotten even in the school where it was born. . . . I regard the conditions proper to the development of puerperal fever as pre-existent to labour in a certain number of cases .... it is nothing but an epidemic which brings to the Maternité and to the Clinique women pregnant or in labour who already exhibit the most characteristic and usually the most serious symptoms of puerperal fever.” At the next meeting Dubois addressed himself to the question of suppressing the lying-in hospitals, a policy which was receiving support in influential quarters at the time, and of course he expressed a preference for their improvement. Coming to the disconcerting statistics of Tarnier, he tried to throw doubt upon their accuracy. This portion of his oration is mere quibbling: even if Tarnier had made some mistakes, the general effect of his figures after making every allowance still remained appalling. Dubois, owing to his great official position, had to review the discussion and express a pious wish that it might be beneficial to obstetric science. Velpean took part in the discussion late, but his contribution was one of the few which could be considered of any value. He reviewed some early work on puerperal fever which he had been engaged upon forty years before, in which he sought to prove that many diseases began with an alteration of the blood, and that the pus which produced puerperal fever could kill with or without local lesions. As far as puerperal fever was concerned, there were two parties present in this discussion; one was essentialist and the other regarded
