Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 55-56. (Budapest, 1970)

TANULMÁNYOK - Benedek, István: The Illness and Death of Semmelweis (angol nyelvű közlemény)

rather uncertain. Was it not on Semmelweis's scapula that Regöly-Mérei found traces of serious suppuration, where the process could not be older than a few weeks? (It is true, he does not speak of osteophyte-formation.) All the same I do not claim that Regöly-Mérei was not right. Only some doubt arises : perhaps he was not right. The expert opinion did not settle the question, the two possibilities face each other with equal probability: perhaps the pyaemia originated in an injury-caused osteomyelitis, but perhaps the hospital was responsible for the infection. Be as it is, the report of the post mortem examination discloses the most dreadful treatment. Serious injuries reaching even the bones and purulently decomposed and deficient tissues on both hands ; loss of tissue until the periosteum on the right cubitus, hazelnut-sized losses on the left arm, knee, and shank; stinking gas between the right pectoral muscles; filthy, yellow ichorous centres, with the intercostal muscles also infiltrated ichorously; the costal cartilages covered with dirty periosteum: a large hole tearing even the pleura, surrounded by a fist-sized ichorous centre between the pleura and the pericardium. Streaked ichorous centres in the left kidney, symptoms of acute inflammation in the cerebrum and in the myelon. It is obvious that these horrifying injuries were not the transferences of the osteomyelitis, but the consequences of brutal beating, tying down, trampling underfoot. We do not cherish illusions how the lunatics in the middle of the last century were treated, but if we did, they would be removed by the report. The death of Semmelweis was indeed caused by sepsis, and the sepsis in turn by the infection of the neglected wounds. Did he have a toxic delirium? On the basis of the anatomical and histological diagnosis of the cerebrum and the myelon he most probably had it in the mental hospital, due to sepsis independently of his chronic dementia. NOTES 1. Benedek, István: Semmelweis és kora. Bp. 1967. 2. L. c. p. 407—408. 3. L. c. p. 377. 4. Orv. Hetil. 1865. augusztus 20. 5. 1865. augusztus 20. 6. Bruck, Jakab : Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp. Bp. 1885. (German 1887) 7. 1906. október 2. 8. Orv. Hetil. 1872. 45. 9. Magyar Hírlap 1906. október 2. 10. Regöly-Mérei, Gyula : Semmelweis betegségének orvostörténeti elemzése. Semmelweis maradványainak pathologiai vizsgálata. = Semmelweis betegsége. Szerk. Hüttl, Tivadar. Bp. 1965. — Bartucz, Lajos : Semmelweis négyszeri exhumálása. = Természettudományi Közlöny 1965. 12. — Bartucz, Lajos: Anthropologiai és személyazonossági vizsgálatok Semmelweis Ignác csontvázán. = A praehistorikus trepanáció és orvostörténeti vonatkozású sírleletek. Bp. 1966. 8 Orvostörténeti Közlemények 55—56.