Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)

VI. Publication or "Die Aetiologie"

PUBLICATION OF “DIE iETIOLOGIE” 201

fever, and that during the same School-year, 58 students of medicine and 199 pupil-midwives received instruction in clinical midwifery within the narrow limits of the Clinic.

Semmelweis worked very hard at his book in 1859 and i860, and he added to his professional literary burdens the editing of the portion of the medical journal devoted to obstetrics and gynaecology.

One day in i860 he met his friend Dr. Hirschler in the street, greeted him in a great state of excitement and marched him off home with him. There he read to Hirschler the Introduction to his book. He considered the work now complete; he had finished with the* Preface (Vorwort). Yet it was not complete: Semmelweis was continually writing fresh chapters, all in a great hurry, constantly repeating portions without coordination, and hurrying the manuscript off to the printer without revision.

In this manner was written “Die VEtiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers” : the book bears abundant internal evidence of the method of its creation.

It was finished in August, and published in October, i860. It is a work running to 543 pages. It has been long out of print, and was becoming almost unobtainable, when Hungarian patriotism made it accessible to all. In 1905 the whole works of Semmelweis were edited by Tiberius von Gyory, privat-dozent in the University of Buda-Pesth, and published under the auspices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in an admirably printed volume of 600 pages.

The first portion of the book contains nearly all implied in the title of the whole, and yet it has no heading to convey to the expectant reader what subjects are to be discussed in its pages. We have already given in summary the contents of this very important portion.

Then follows the “ Import of Child-bed Fever ”