Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VI. Publication or "Die Aetiologie"
ETIOLOGY 215 confinements at the Maternité, 2,000 of the women became seriously ill, and 700 died and were “secirt.” Osiander speaks of peritonitis (Unterleibsentzündung) as synonymous with puerperal fever; he also says: “The disease is observed especially in the winter months;” and the mortality between 1803 and 1808 was so shocking that the authorities practically suppressed the details. . . . “It was the difference in the mortality of the two divisions of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital which raised the first doubts in my mind concerning the doctrine of epidemic puerperal fever.” The same inequality in the mortality of two divisions of the same institution we find in Strassburg under exactly similar circumstances. For details reference is again made to Dr. Arneth’s book. There were formerly two professors at Strassburg, and “the Lying-in Hospital consists of two parts: la Clinique for medical students : and le Service or School for Midwives. The two portions were separated by only a thin partition. ... It was not possible to obtain exact information about the mortality, but both professors were agreed that it was constantly higher in the Clinique than in the Service.” Semmelweis wrote to Professor Stoltz and to Dr. Wieger on this subject in 1858. Wieger, among other statements, wrote : “What Arneth told you is quite true.” Professor Stoltz replied at considerable length in French; in the course of his letter he said, “ le fait est exact;” and he went on to describe the defects of his institution, and to say nice complimentary things to Semmelweis. He also promised to introduce his method of prophylaxis into the whole of the Strassburg Maternité. Semmelweis proceeds to discuss the question of puerperal fever at Strassburg at considerable length with quotations from Arneth’s book; he then returns to Osiander and the Paris Maternité and compares its high mortality with that of Vienna in the same years, where it was about 1 per cent.
