Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
Naegele, Schwarz the young friend of Michaelis of Kiel, and Wieger of Strassburg. So these young graduates, who had learned the Semmelweis Doctrine at first hand, and enthusiastically accepted it as a new evangel, divided Europe among them, and each undertook to w?rite to his former professor or to some influential obstetrician of his own country. Skoda also lent his great influence at Prague and Würzburg, but he thus unintentionally opened the floodgates of hostile controversy, as will appear in the sequel. After the despatch of the letters we can imagine how the coterie of young Fachgenossen would meet in the hospital, in the Bier-Halle, or in the private lodging in the Josephstadt, and eagerly speculate on the reception their letters w:ere receiving at their destination, and more or less anxiously anticipating the purport of the answers. The young men all thoroughly believed in Semmelweis, and were anxious to be helpful in spreading the truth. This fact alone affords strong testimony to the attractive personality of Semmelweis, and the impressiveness of his teaching. THE REVOLUTION. But there were other matters of the gravest importance filling all men’s minds in those early days of 1848. The amazing portent of a reforming Pope of Rome had appeared in 1847, and Austria, with insignificant exceptions was devoted to Rome. Probably owing to mistaken interpretation of papal action, a movement in favour of political liberty sprang up, and disturbances of the most serious character occurred in Milan and Venice, in the whole of Austrian Italy, in the first days of January, 1848./The political storm, about to burst upon Vienna, was to have a disastrous influence upon the career of Semmelweis. Generally speaking, we read very little in the history of medicine of the influence of political events, in any epoch, upon the advancement or arrest of the progress of medical science; and in this particular instance, in spite THE REVOLUTION 69
