Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
III. Life in Vienna
ELIMINATION OF FACTORS 39 the patients in the Second Division. In both Divisions the same arrangements prevailed with regard to the patients leaving their beds at the end of seven or eight days. Very few sickened after that time. A second change of room appeared to make no difference in the health of the patients, and besides, the arrangements were the same in both Divisions. It is a curious episode, this allegation of danger from early rising in the puerperium. Charles White, of Manchester, in his Treatise, “ Of the Causes and Symptoms of the Puerperal or Childbed Fever,” published in 1773, claims that the immunity of his patients from puerperal fever depended upon his practice of making them rise within the first day of the puerperium; he never lost a case among his own patients. And, again, the treatment of a century and a half since has recently come into favour in Germany, chiefly under the influence of Professor Krönig of Freiburg. Ventilation, or rather the want of ventilation, was blamed by some whose opinions were freely offered. Ventilation was effected in the First Clinic by opening the windows, even in the winter time. But exactly the same method of ventilation was employed in the Second Division. The washing was blamed by some, because it was said to be mixed with the “wash” of the General Hospital, overlooking the fact that this was also the case with the washing of the Second Division. Neither chilling nor errors of diet could be laid hold of in explanation of the difference in the mortality of the two Divisions. The method of warming was exactly the same in both Divisions, and the possibility of chilling was equal in both. The food was supplied by the same caterer; the diet regulations were identical in both Divisions. These were the endemic causes to which was ascribed the great mortality among the hospital cases as compared with the mortality outside the Lying-in Hospital; but they did not throw light on the greater mortality of
