Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VI. Publication or "Die Aetiologie"
BREISKY 233 write the notice about Semmelweis in an unfavourable sense, as was to be expected at Prague; but nothing could justify the stupidity and cruelty of the smart jibes and sarcasms. The subject was vastly too serious for such treatment. He would have done better to imitate in a becoming manner the style of Semmelweis. Breisky’s article is chiefly of interest as expressing the almost unanimous opinion of the German “authorities” in obstetrics at that time. For them Semmelweis was still, as he had been misrepresented for fourteen or fifteen years to be, the “ Apostle of Cadaveric Infection.” 1 They would not learn at first-hand the full import of the Lehre. And one point more about this Prague Lying-in Hospital where the staff had always been partisans against Semmelweis: let us hear the independent testimony of Le Fort,2 most patient, impartial, and clear-eyed of observers, who made a professional journey round the lying-in hospitals of Europe two or three years later. “In spite of its favourable position outside the city and its isolation the Maternité of Prague has always had a rather high mortality. Epidemics are somewhat frequent, and if in the statistics the mortality is not more on the average than 4 per cent., we must keep in mind that a rather large number (un assez grand nombre) of women affected with puerperal fever are transferred to the general hospital which diminishes to a remarkable extent the mortality of the Maternité. The impression which was made upon me by the Clinical Obstetric Section was most unfavourable. . . . We found there many women very ill or dying of puerperal fever amidst normal puerperae. ... I should be glad to hear of the demolition of this establishment. . . . “ Destruction of the present Maternité of Prague appeared the only means of improvement, because it cannot be destroyed without first erecting a new institution.” It is a remarkable phenomenon in the history of 1. Bruck, p. 84. 2. Le Fort: Des Maternités, 1864.
