Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
III. Life in Vienna
50 THE DISCOVERY had frequently occasion to come into contact with the cadaver. According to the usual method of washing the hands, merely with soap and water, the cadaveric particles adhering to the hands were never completely removed, a fact demonstrated by the cadaveric odour which the hands retained for a longer or shorter time after washing. In examinations of pregnant, parturient, and puerperal women, the hand made unclean by cadaveric material was brought into contact with the genitals, hence the possibility of resorption and by resorption the conveying of cadaveric matter into the vascular system of the patient. In this way was produced in the lying-in woman the same disease as that from which Kolletschka died. If this theory that the cadaveric material adhering to the hand can produce the same disease as the cadaveric particles adhering to the scalpel be correct, then if the cadaveric material on the hands can be completely destroyed by chemical agencies, and the genitals of the woman in labour or in the lying-in state be brought into contact with the clean fingers only, and not simultaneously with cadaveric particles, then the disease can be prevented to the extent to which it originated by the presence of cadaveric material on the examining fingers. Introduction of Antisepsis. In order to destroy the cadaveric material adhering to the hands, I began about the middle of May, 1847, to employ chlorina liquida with which every student was required to wash his hands before making an examination. After a short time a solution of chlorinated lime was substituted because it was not so expensive. In the month of May, 1847, the mortality in the First Clinic still amounted to over 12 per cent., within the remaining seven months it was reduced in a very remarkable degree. During these seven months, 1841, cases of labour were attended in the First Clinic and 56 women died,
