Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 62-63. (Budapest, 1971)

TANULMÁNYOK - Meigs, J. Wister: Kontagionisták, antikontagionisták és a gyermekágyi láz (angol nyelven)

tead he included a series of subtle, seemingly intentional, clues that almost suggested a treasure hunt. Holmes devoted considerable effort, for the rest of his life, to demolishing the reputations of anticontagionists, with special insults for Philadelphians and Meigs [11]. Contrast this, if you will, with McCHntock's behavior. McClintock was more dogmatic about contagion in 1848 than Holmes had been in 1843, and he also emphasized criminality in 1848, But McClintock not only modified his views about the importance of contagion after presiding over epidemics, he even used material from Meigs's texts to voice support for his later stance as a "limited contagionist". When I first discovered that Holmes's attack on Philadelphians was based on misrepresentations and innuendo, subtly interwoven with facts, I thought the explanation might lie in the traditional Boston-Philadelphia rivalry [31a], as well as Holmes's enthusiastic pride in Boston and New England, his natural conceit, and his skill as a writer [31], Whatever part these factors may have played, they are not sufficient in themselves. The attack must be seen as a part of a larger structure, a kind of Holy Cause. Tortured motherhood was crying out, and Holmes responded. The key to the puzzle is that Oliver Wendell Holmes was at heart a poet. The essay on "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever" is a poem in prose. W. H. Auden described the "Poet-Historian" a few years ago: "He usually tells stories in prose which are full of contradictions and paradoxes .. . His characters remain slightly mysterious, so that every listener interprets them slightly differently . . . he makes his audience believe . . . that what they are hearing really happened because they recognize in what they hear something which they know to be true about themselves" [2], Holmes's essay is a remarkable example of the poet-historian's work. Read today, it sustains one's interest as it has for generations of readers. Fashioned intricately and precisely, it gives poetic insight into a scientific problem. Holmes used science wherever it supported his perception of truth. When facts about people did not contribute to the message he wanted to convey, he used poetic license. For example, in 1843, Philadelphia's Meigs and Boston's Channing held similar views about puerperal fever, its contagiousness and what hygienic measures should be used by obstetricians, yet these men were effectively represented by Holmes as being on opposite sides of the contagion issue [Ha, lib]. In striking contrast, Semmelweis's monograph presented an array of scientific facts interspersed with a number of emotional outbursts. Read today, the science is clearly dated and the emotion detracts from the force of the author's message. From the standpoint of medical science Semmelweis's contribution was monumental, yet it contains recognizable defects that the author's admirers describe [9], [30], Holmes's admirers, on the other hand, bemused by the poet's art perhaps, recognize no errors at all in his essay. B. P. Watson, Director of the Sloane Hospital for Women found it "at once a model of cold scientific reasoning and impassioned pleading . . . it is impossible to find in it a statement which is false or an argument that can be refuted" [32].