Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 299 weis was a vessel too small for its contents. He was full of genius as a discoverer, highly capable in laying hold of the discovery, weak with regard to bringing it into full effect during his own time. Consistently with his endowments and according to the circumstances of the time, has he fulfilled his own personal destiny; at one time cheered and made happy by recognition of the new truth; again bitterly resentful if it did not at once receive recognition, chiding against all opposition; at last fallen into wreck and ruin. “When Fate calls upon such natures to play the part of prophets, the performance is always a tragedy. Fortunate for mankind if the prophecy is not overwhelmed with the prophet.” Obstetrical Society of London, 1875. For more than half a century before the discovery of Semmelweis, the science and practice of Obstetrics in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was generally recognized as the most advanced and successful in Europe. In the prevention and treatment of puerperal fever we were unquestionably the most successful, and were naturally assumed, therefore, to be the most enlightened. Foreign visitors came to London and Dublin to learn the secret of our success, with the intention of introducing our principles and methods into their own native lands. Of these the most distinguished was L. J. Boer of Vienna, commissioned by the Emperor Joseph II. It will be remembered also that Semmelweis, in the prospect of a set-back in his professional career in 1846, commenced to learn English in preparation for visiting the Rotunda Hospital of Dublin with the object of working at clinical midwifery. From the fourth decade of the nineteenth century a process of deterioration had set in, largely under French influence. Men with special endowments, such as Simpson of Edinburgh, rose into eminence now and again, and produced a salutary influence for a time, but there was no general progressive movement, and from the time of the introduction of anaesthesia into obstetric
