Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
HIRSCH 281 Midwives under Späth the wonderful success achieved by earnestness and conviction with correspondingly consistent action. Hirsch, 1864. In 1864, too late for Semmelweis to derive any satisfaction, appeared the strongest independent testimony in the whole series of publications, up to that time, while Semmelweis was still living. It was contained in the second volume of the work of Hirsch, Professor of Medicine in the University of Berlin, and was entitled: Handbuch der historisch- geographischer Pathologie. The second edition of this book was translated into English by Dr. Charles Creighton, and published by the New Sydenham Society in 1885. It is the 2nd Edition that is drawn upon here. At the outset Hirsch refers to the success of antiseptics in preventing traumatic erysipelas. “ The prophylactic rules, directed against hospital gangrene and septic wound-diseases, have proved not less beneficial; and for the puerperal infective diseases whose admission into the group of traumatic diseases hardly anyone nowadays will object to, the same holds good.” “ Setting out from this principle (rational prophylaxis based on the causes of a disease), and working on the basis of experiences at the Lying-in Hospital of Vienna in 1847, Semmelweis developed his doctrine of the prophylaxis of puerperal fever. And although his view of the causative conditions was one-sided, he was still a true pioneer in elaborating the doctrine of the origin and prevention of that disease, and his work was of great service not only to the Vienna Lying-in Institution, but to mankind at large.” I take credit to myself for having . . . stood forward as his exponent, and for having directed the attention of the profession in Germany to his measures, which had been little noticed up to that time. My endeavour was to enlarge the doctrine of Semmelweis. ... I shall thus share with Semmelweis the credit of being named a founder of the rational doctrine of the origin of puerperal fever. . . .
