Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
62 SPREAD OF DOCTRINE and received the tidings with cordial satisfaction, or the reverse, according to their interests and sympathies. Professor Klein would have nothing to do with the new-fangled notions of his Assistant, but he did not at first actively oppose Semmelweis or interfere in any way with his professional work in the Clinic. Klein had ceased to take much interest even in the teaching of his subjects; he merely delivered his lectures, and left the management of his department very much in the hands of Semmelweis. All which was a distinct advantage towards the experimental establishment and the progress of the Lehre. The most ardent supporters of the Semmelweis Doctrine were the three professors who had befriended him from the first, with Dr. Haller, senior physician at the General Hospital, the group of men in fact who had drawn the attention of the world to the Vienna School of Medicine, and attracted to their class-rooms in the General Hospital students and young graduates from all parts of Europe. These men of light and leading “ doubted not for a moment that the theory would prove itself right,” as Skoda said in an address two years later. Probably as a result of mere temperament, and possibly also influenced in some measure by the recollection of the ill-usage to which he had himself been subjected as the pioneer of auscultation and percussion, Skoda became the most strenuous and outspoken supporter of Semmelweis, and he may have gone just a little too far in his advocacy for the best interests of his protégé. In any case, influential as he was in some quarters, he could not at first obtain the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the importance of the discovery, and a bitter feud arose between him and Klein over the subject. One result of this, as far as Semmelweis was concerned, was that Klein, instead of remaining a tolerant observer or passive resister, became an active and dangerous enemy. With Klein hostile, we may be sure the usual circle of sycophants would stir up animosity, and encourage
