Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
270 SUCCESSORS any attempt made to appreciate his personal character, or to appraise the value of his professional achievements and his services to Mankind. He was then merely a despised Hungarian ‘crank.’ Now they claim him as a German, and even specifically as an Austrian German. The irony ! PROFESSIONAL SUCCESSORS IN BUDA-PESTH. The appointment made in succession to Semmelweis was not creditable to the Austrian authorities. His place was difficult even nominally to fill; no one could really succeed him. Probably the best of the young graduates among his own former students were still too young to take the position. In any case Dr. Johann Diescher, who was not even a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, was appointed professor to occupy the vacant chair. Dr. Walla, of the St. Rochus Hospital, had never accepted the Semmelweis doctrine, and so it came to pass that the two officiai teachers of midwifery in Buda-Pesth were opposed or indifferent to the new methods of prophylaxis. So the mortality from puerperal fever began at once to rise, and it continued under Walla as in the time of Birly, the predecessor of Semmelweis. After the death of Walla, Dr. Fleischer, a disciple of Semmelweis, was appointed to the St. Rochus Hospital, and in his first year of office there was not a single death from puerperal fever. The malady was eradicated by faith and works. When Professor Diescher retired in 1876, he was also succeeded by a disciple of Semmelweis, v. Kézmárszky, and he also at once banished puerperal fever from the University Lying-in Hospital. Since then there has been no arrest of progress in Buda-Pesth. Spread of the Doctrine resumed. Späth, 1864. Professor Späth had succeeded Professor Bartsch as Director of the School for Midwives in Vienna, and several times he brought his experiences before the
