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

TANULMÁNYOK - Zoltán Imre: Semmelweis (angol nyelvű közlemény)

not agree with the above conceptions. However this is not the essential point of the issue. It is promising that historians are endeavouring to set the historic facts in their true light and above all that they agree on one point: Semmelweis's human greatness and the significance of his epoch-making discovery cannot be dimmed either by the fact that in the last years of his life his health had been undermined by a disease nor by the nature of the same. Today when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth, his stature and the historic significance of his discovery stand clearly before us. From the birth of bacteriology to that of antibiotics all the result of the past 100 years of medical science confirm the truth of Semmelweis's teaching. Nothing essential, has been added to it nor detracted. The obstetric and gynaecological section of the conference held in 1003 in Budapest discussed the question of puerperal fever under the chairmanship of Tauffer. In his inaugural speech Tauffer said the following: on Semmelweis's pedestal in the history of science a place has been left vacant for the person whose mind will be illuminated as Semmelweis's by the divine spark, and who will discover the second, additional part the Semmelweis theory, i.e. the cure for puerperal sepsis" Our fortunate generation has lived to see the completion of the Semmelweis doctrine : puerperal fever does not figure anymore on the wide range of maternal mortality causes. The time, that Semmelweis had predicted with scientific convinction and unshaken optimism, has come. It cannot be expressed more eloquently than his own words did in the conclusion of his book: "Compared with the vast figures of the past and future, the number of those saved by me or by my students following my doctrine may still be small. Should it not be my fate to see with my own eyes the happy future, the firm belief, that this time will come and must come will cheer up my dying days" And that this time has come is first of all the merit of Semmelweis. His life so rich in struggles and tortures, so tragic as a human destinv, and the lessons of his career should serve as examples to members of the medical profession. Semmelweis was first and foremost a physician in the loftiest sense of the word, and his heritage is not only surgical cleanliness but moral chastity. He is justly called by historians the standard-bearer of science, the pioneer of aetiological and modern bacteriological researches, one of the greatest benefactors of mankind, the John Huss of epidemiology, the Martin Luther of physicians, the most inspired prophet of humane thinking, the embodiment of scientific honesty and of the highest human and medical ideals. On the 150th anniversary of Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis, we, his late descendants reverently bow our heads before him. Összefoglalás A Budapesti Orvostudományi Egyetem falán emléktábla örökíti meg Semmelweis nevét, aki 1855-től 1805-ig az egyetem szülészprofesszora volt. Büszkeséggel tölt el bennünket, hogy hazánk szülötte, bár jó ideig vita folyt nemzeti hovatartozása felől.