Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
There are some other pathetic circumstances associated with the death of Semmelweis. The body was removed to the dead-house of the General Hospital. Fifteen years before, Semmelweis had passed out through the portal in the Alserstrasse, heart-sick from blighted hopes and disappointed ambition, a broken man in his own belief; and he never returned until he crossed the threshold in his coffin to be in his turn subjected to the same process of post-mortem examination to which he had so zealously devoted years f of his professional life in Vienna. The autopsy revealed) 1 extensive organic disease of the brain. Whether it was| the cause or the consequence of the alternating periods of depression and excitement in an emotional type of man, is a question which we must be content to leave unanswered. The remains were at first consigned to the grave in one of the burying-grounds of Vienna. It was not until the year 1891 that they were conveyed to Buda-Pesth and there found a more suitable and becoming last resting- place. Markusovszky devoted to his departed friend an obituary notice in the Orvosi Hetilap worthy of the occasion. “He was one of those mortals not always happy, but he was favoured by fate, inasmuch as it was given to him to enrich science with a new idea, and thereby to confer upon humanity an immeasurably important service. And what still further enhances the service in this respect is the circumstance that his discovery was no mere stroke of chance, but the result of a living conclusion and conviction, evolved out of scientific observation and knowledge . . . Markusovszky also says in another place : “He was an upright natural man, and it was impossible for him to be otherwise. Egotism and cringing were equally foreign to his honourable soul.” The medical press of Austria and Germany took but little notice of the death of Semmelweis. Some short references appeared in a few journals, but nowhere was LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH 269
