Antall József szerk.: Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 5. (Budapest, 1972)

The Life of Ignác Semmelweis (1818-1865)

HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH The last years passed in bitter emotions and melancholy. He continued, however, his work and theoretical activity, and greatly contributed to the rise of gynaecology in Hungary. His doctrine was favourably received by the obstetricians of St. Petersburg and he was somewhat comforted by this recognition. In the middle of July 1865 his mental make-up seemed to be breaking down. His mental insanity became quite obvious on a faculty meeting of the university when instead of voting he began to read the text of the midwives' oath. His astounded colleagues took him home. Professor Balassa, Bókaÿ and Wagner, the most eminent professors of the University of Pest examined him. On July 31st 1865 he was taken to Vienna and placed under care of a mental home. He was accompanied there by Professor Hebra (Fig. 102.). He wanted to walk out but he was restrained. Hardly a fortnight passed when Semmelweis died on 13th August 1865. The immediate cause of his death was that some days before the above-mentioned faculty meeting, he had cut the middle finger of his right hand, apparently while performing an operation. The wound became supporons, his arm inflamed, he suffered from paroxysm. The process spread over his whole organism. The autopsy record stated pyaemia (sepsis). His early death had actually the same cause as from which the puerperal died for whom he had been struggling in all his life, and the aetiology of which disease he had discovered. This is the real tragedy of Semmelweis's passionate and restless life. " There were three entirely independent phases in the mental illness of Semmelweis. The first phase, that of psychopathia, culminated around 1861 but never developed into insanity. The second phase was a chronic degeneration of the nervous system, probably paralysis. It progressed in gradual stages from 1861 onwards and became acute in the summer of 1865. The third phase, the acute infectious mental disturbance was due to a neglected osteomyelitis which developed in the mental hospital in Vienna. His death was caused by pyaemia." The significance of Semmelweis's discovery transcends the framework of obstetrics, it belongs to surgery and medicine as a whole. His discovery was fully verified only by the rise of bacteriology, through the activities of Pasteur and Koch. There was a long discussion in medical literature the priority of the work of the American Holmes, the English Lister and Semmelweis. It was Lister who introduced the use of carbolic acid spray in surgery in order to destroy pyogenic germs. Semmelweis on the other hand stressed the significance of the prophylaxis of infection. Each scientific discovery has its predecessors, and numerous parallels can be discovered in the proposed methods. But the question of priority in the basic question, the discovery of the fact that puerperal fever and sepsis are