Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
G. VEIT 289 It is disappointing to find Winckel alleging that Semmelweis in 1847 declared cadaveric poison to be the chief cause of puerperal fever, and gradually evolved his complete theory as proclaimed in the dEtiologie which was published in 1861. Winckel speaks of the theory that Semmelweis “ so fanatically preached,” and yet although he was preparing a monograph on puerperal fever for the much required instruction of his fellow countrymen, he permitted himself to make use of an opprobrious epithet, while clearly unimpressed with the vast services which Semmelweis from the first rendered to obstetric science. Veit, 1867. Professor G. Veit in a chapter of Virchow’s Handbuch, published in 1867, speaks frankly and without reservation of the merits of the Semmelweis Lehre : “The explanation of puerperal fever as a resorption fever produced by infection by means of a decomposed animal material, has in recent years been accepted by an ever-widening circle, and ere long it will meet with no opponents. . . The various pathological processes in puerperal fever are completely explained in the theory of septic infection. . . . A large part of Veit’s article is devoted to a criticism of the contributions to the Vienna Medical Journal in 1864 in praise of heating and ventilation as the best means of preventing puerperal fever, and of Braun’s declaration that disinfectants are of no use. . . . “Only a firm conviction of the usefulness of these measures is a guarantee that the efforts necessary for disinfection will be made in all their completeness. . . . Veit gives expression to some sound practical judgment with regard to the beds of lying-in women, the boiling of catheters, and the complete disuse of sponges. Veit was By no means a zealot, but v. Waldheim is perhaps a little exacting when he blames him for the too cautious and unprogressive statement of opinion prevalent in some parts of Germany : “ As to disinfection, there may be something in it.” T
