Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)

IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period

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IV.

Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period.

Now, in the autumn of 1847, was the Discovery of Semmelweis complete, and the Doctrine firmly established in his own mind. It amounted to this : that puerperal fever was caused by a decomposed animal organic matter conveyed by contact to the pregnant, parturient or puerperal woman without regard to its origin, whether from the cadaver or from a living person affected with a disease which produced a decomposed animal organic matter.

We shall find that with years of experience Semmelweis found many varieties of illustration, but he never modified his Doctrine in any manner or degree, whatever opponents in later years may have alleged as an excuse for carelessness in the reading of his works, or for their own hostility and the eager levity with which they misrepresented or misunderstood him.

For Semmelweis it was the “eternally true’’ doctrine of the etiology of puerperal fever. The explanation of why and how decomposed animal matter infects the puerpera was to come with later developments of biological Nscience, but the etiology of Semmelweis stands to-day, without essential modifications, as it was announced sixty years ago.

It may be assumed that while the etiology was becoming evolved and taking shape in the mind of Semmelweis, his intimate friends Hebra, and Skoda, and Rokitansky were kept informed about every episode bearing on the question which occurred in the First Obstetric Clinic; and no doubt the large professional circle of the General Hospital became acquainted with the new doctrine in its various stages of evolution, incomplete and complete,