Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
E. MARTIN 287 quently of its prevention. He is perhaps also the first to call in question the influence of the atmosphere as a carrier of infection : “Whether this contagion can also be conveyed by the atmosphere is very doubtful.” This idea we find among the prominent influential and independent obstetricians next expressed by G. Veit and Winckel in 1866. But before the publication of v. Winckel’s book a great change had come over obstetric opinion in Germany. Virchow and Veit now more or less frankly admitted conversion to the Semmelweis Doctrine; in fact no prominent teachers remained in opposition except Scanzoni and Carl Braun, and their satellites. It was in the year i860 that Professor Martin first enunciated his theory that puerperal fever depended upon a diphtheritic process set up in the female genital organs. He returned to the subject in 1871. The English reader will find an unusually extensive summary of Martin’s paper in the Medical Times and Gazette, November, 1871. In this paper Martin appears to be describing for the first time the pseudo-diphtheritic membrane with which we are now familiar as a phenomenon of sepsis, chiefly observed on the surfaces of lacerated parts. “In the majority of cases we find on the external genitals and the vagina a diphtheritic deposit covering those wounded spots. ...” Bacteriological science was not then sufficiently far advanced to enable Martin to differentiate between true diphtheria and sepsis with membrane formation. But on the whole Martin must be looked upon as an object for the commiseration of the gods, a good man struggling with adversity : he assigns to “ diphtheria ” too important a part in the pathology of puerperal fever, and his thesis could not be proved. With regard to etiology, he gives some graphic details, though of course in principle there is nothing new—for example, as incidental illustration : “ This is very positively shown by the well-known fact, confirmed by the numerous figures of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital,
