Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
76 MICHAELIS, OF KIEL a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society entitled : “ On the Causes of the Endemic Puerperal Fever of Vienna,” and it was published in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, Vol. xxxii (1849). In this paper Dr. Routh laid too much stress upon cadaveric poison, as perhaps was natural under the circumstances. After the reading of Routh’s paper, Dr. Murphy mentioned the case of a German student who was constantly going to post-mortem examinations. Puerperal fever seemed to attend him wherever he went; but on giving up his pursuit after dead bodies the fever subsided. Dr. Copland said that the facts stated in the paper were so convincing that he could scarcely doubt their accuracy. The mode of infection mentioned by the author was, however, only one of the modes in which puerperal fever was propagated. It was known that the disease might be communicated also by the hands of the accoucheur who had attended a case of the disease. . . . He thought that something was due to the frequency with which examinations during labour were made. . . . Mr. Moore mentioned that the number of post-mortem examinations at the Vienna Hospital was remarkable. He had seen as many as fifteen bodies lying for examination in a morning. The students and professors had their hands immersed in these for hours together. . . . (Lancet, Dec. 9, 1848). Michaelis. The second answer to Semmelweis came through Schwarz from Professor Michaelis of Kiel, known to English readers chiefly by his work on the ‘‘Obliquely Contracted Pelvis,” quoted by all our modern makers of text-books on midwifery. Michaelis wrote: “ When I received your letter I was again in the greatest distress. Our institution had been closed on account of puerperal fever from the ist of July to the ist of November. The first three patients then
