Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 303 within certain limits or it may not; but there is an intensity in the infection ... in the woman in the puerperal state, a peculiar condition . . . which we know very little about . . . Here we have once more the position taken up by Churchill in 1849, and by so many German professors contemporary with Semmelweis. There is something more in it than mere local wound-fever: there is “the unknown something,” the divinum aliquid, which is a mystery. Dr. Newman, of Northampton, a medical practitioner, made some remarks which are of interest as showing the opinions with regard to puerperal fever which were prevalent at that time among the best class of general practitioners. From the experience of twenty years he had reached the conclusions: firstly, that there was no such thing as a definite puerperal fever, and in the second place, that there was always some definite infecting poison. This “definite” poison turns out from the illustrative cases given to be scarlatina, “a local inflammatory mischief” illustrated by manual removal of the placenta, sewer gas, the mental conditions associated with pregnancy, and the peculiar constitution in the puerperal state—curious explanation of opinions concerning “definite poison.” Dr. Newman thus made a disappointing contribution to the discussion. Dr. Braxton Hicks, Lecturer on Midwifery at Guy’s Hospital, considered that the solution of some of the difficulties had been retarded mainly by two influences : (1) Most of the older observations were made in hospitals, and thus the character of the cases was similar; (2) information was obtained from the post-mortem room, hence the appearances most prominent were supposed to be of the essence of the disease instead of being looked to as effect. This concentration of attention obscured the clinical facts. Investigation into the nature of the poison is a distinct part of the subject. We must not look at the death-rate only as a measure of the influence of the disease. Where one dies three or more are re
