Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
III. Life in Vienna
26 FRIENDS OF SEMMELWEIS to the Vienna School of Medicine, were Rokitansky, Skoda and Hebra. Each of them was to become world- renowned in his own special department of medicine, but they were destined largely to perpetuate their fame by association with the genial and vivacious young Hungarian whom they accepted within their circle of medical reformers, and befriended on many occasions when friends and counsel were sadly needed. At the time when Semmelweis began the study of medicine Rokitansky had already been working at pathological anatomy, almost as a pioneer, at the Vienna General Hospital for nearly twenty years, and he had been appointed Professor of Pathological Anatomy. He was then about forty years of age, and was a recognised authority in his subject, like Virchow somewhat later. He afforded Semmelweis many facilities for the study of gynaecology by post-mortem observations when he was a waiting aspirant, and Semmelweis continued to work hard at the subject even after he received the official appointment as Assistant to the Professor of Midwifery. There was a dignity and power about Rokitansky which compelled to progress even the dull crowd of Höfling placemen in the Medical School, who resisted all advancement in medical science. Skoda, who was then a man of thirty-nine, could look back already upon a somewhat chequered career. When a junior physician at the General Hospital he had published the work on Auscultation and Percussion which became so famous afterwards. As usual with pioneers he became an object of derision and the butt of the obscurantist seniors and sycophantish juniors of the medical department, and all sorts of difficulties were placed in his way. The despotic director of the General Hospital had his mind poisoned against Skoda, and on the wretched pretext that he hurt the patients and made them worse with his thumping and pressing on their chests, he was transferred to the Lunatic Asylum to practise there! His position became intolerable in his
