Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VI. Publication or "Die Aetiologie"
ETIOLOGY 211 statistics that puerperal fever is not bound up with any season in particular. He gives a Table (No. XIX.) compiled with vast industry in order to prove that over a long series of years there was no month or season showing a regular maximum or a regular minimum mortality. This is a return to the subject with which he dealt in an earlier part of his book. Semmelweis had alleged that the high mortality in Vienna coincided with the time when students were busiest with dissection and with operations on the cadaver, and he endeavours once more to support that thesis. He gives figures to prove that in January, 1849, the mortality was 2'25 per cent., whereas in January, 1842, it was 2084 per cent. In February, 1848, the minimum mortality for that month was o'68, and in 1846 occurred the maximum for February, viz., 18 per cent., and so all through all the months of the year. In December we find the minimum mortality for that month fell in 1848 with i'34 per cent, and the maximum in 1842 was 31'38 per cent. . . . It is the prevailing opinion that Winter is the season of the year which specially favours an outbreak of puerperal fever, and as a matter of fact we must admit the evidence that, upon the whole, in the winter months there is frequently a less favourable condition, and seldom a more favourable, and in Summer time there is frequently a more favourable condition of health, and less frequently an unfavourable. The explanation of Semmelweis is something like this : But these phenomena are not to be explained by the atmospheric influences of Winter, else puerperal fever would never occur in the more severe and extensive forms in the Summer time. The phenomena are to be explained by the occupation of those who attend the lying-in hospitals, and that occupation depends upon the season of the year. After the long vacation in August and September, the students return to their studies with fresh zeal and industry, and as far as midwifery is concerned, there is
