Magyar News, 1992. szeptember-1993. augusztus (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1993-05-01 / 9. szám
*--I-ÍTV H| mam Volume III, Issue 9 ■■ Bridgeport, May 1993 Magyar News Monthly Publication in Cooperation of the local Hungarian Churches & Organization THE SAVIOR OF MOTHERS We may say that on Mother’s Day over the world people are filled with warmth, love, and the celebration of mothers. At this time I would like to mention a Hungarian who at the second half of the past century saved lives of many mothers. On the base of a statue in front of the Rókus Hospital in Budapest, the inscriptions reads: “Semmelweis, the savior of mothers.” Ignatz Semmelweis was bom on July 1, 1818, at Buda. After two years at the University of Pest, at the age of 19, he matriculated at the University of Vienna as a law student. Butsomehow he changed his mind and by the tie he got back to Buda, he enrolled again at the University of Pest. This time to study medicine. Later, in Vienna, Semmelweis received a medical degree in 1844. Spending two years at the First Obstetric Clinic in the large Vienna Lying-In Hospitálása provisionary assistant, Semmelweis became a regular assistant to the director of this clinic. Semmelweis was especially distressed by the horrors of childbed fever. Mothers within a few hours after delivery would be afflicted with a high fever, rapid pulse, distended abdomen, and excruciating pain. One out of ten would die, as a result of this infection. The mortality due to childbed fever was significantly greater in the clinic where the medical students were instructed. Traditional ideas ascribed childbed fever to epidemic influences and over-crowding. Semmelweis didn ’ t find these explanations satisfying and searched for a better understanding. IGNATZ FULOP SEMMELWEIS A public nursery in Pest in 1871 colleagues died after sustaining a wound while performing an autopsy with the same symptoms as the mothers. Semmelweis made the connection that medical teachers and pupils carried infectious particles from the cadavers to the natural wounds of the mother in childbirth. He then requested that anybody examining the laboring patients should wash his hands with a solution of chlorinated lime first. With this procedure, the mortality rate at the clinic went way down. Surprisingly, opposition from the medical profession to Semmelweis’s observations was intense, fro the paradox of being healer and murderer at the same time was intolerable for most. Semmelweis could not understand this reaction, but nevertheless very few doctors supported him. In 1850 he retired from Vienna and returned to Budapest. At the Saint Rókus Hospital he was allowed to introduce disinfection in the obstetrical division and from there on saving many mothers from childbed fever and death. In his lifetime, Semmelweis became professor at the same university where he himself studied and wrote several books. He ironically died of bloodpoisoning in 1865. It took almost 20 years after his death for his method to arrive to America in 1883. It was introduced at the Boston Lying-In Hospital and started saving mothers’ lives in this part of the world. (CM-B.)
