Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
in 1864, and another one (No. 4.) presenting his wife in the early years of their marriage, in 1863. The third photo (No.6.) shows the widow and her family in the 1860s. We have exhibited some of his personal belongings too (No.9): his briefcase, a paper-knife made of walrus-tusk, and a silver box in which he used to store his cuff-links. In the second show-case we have presented the documents referring to his academic life and scicntific activities. You can sec a copy of the Medical Weekly from 10 January 1858 (No.), in which he first published the early drafts of his discovery about the causes of puerperal fever. There is a facsimile of his letter written to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1860 on show. He donated the original copy of this letter to the University Library, Budapest. And you can also see his major work the Aetologie der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers, published in Leipzig in 1861. There are three copies of the Offene Briefe an säñ mtliche Professoren der Geburtshilfe von Dr. I. Ph. Semmelweis (Opened Letters to the Assembled Professors of Obstetrics by Dr I. F. Semmelweis), published in 1861 and in 1862. In these pamphlets Semmelweis disputed the ideas of two of his opponents, namely J. Spaeth (1823-1896) and F. W. Scanzani (1821-1891), who both insisted that puerperal fewer had been an epidemic. These bitterly arguing papers attracted the attention of European acadcmical circlcs. Coming from a German-speaking family of Buda and studying and making his discovery in Vienna, Semmelweis's national identity has been a disputed issue for long. Here we can produce a good proof of his Hungarian consciousness. Consulting Eduard SiebokTs, paper on Kindbettfieber (Childbcdfcvcr), published in 1847 in the Neue Zeitschrift für Geburstliilfe, Semmelweis made his notes on the margins in Hungarian. His comment on the bottom of the exhibited copy, saying 'Az egész felfogása tarthatalan ' ('His whole conccption is unfounded'), represents Semmelweis's temperament. Moreover, according to his diary he felt upset while reading Sicbold. These facts, altogether, enlighten that Semmelweis was thinking in Hungarian even while reading German texts in an excited manner. Above the show-case there are portraits of some famous gynaecologists of the same period and Semmelweis's Instructions written on the prophylaxis of puerperal fever. The third show-ease presents a few mcdical instruments used in these times: tools for cutting dead embryos (i.e. somatomes), uterodilators, bougies, forccps and a pelvimeter. Furthermore, you can see a forensic mcdical report by Semmelweis and Lajos Arányi (1812-1887), and the photograph and book of Tivadar Kézmárszky (18411902), Semmelweis's succcssor in his chair at the University of Pest. On the panel above the show-case you can see the work-placcs of Semmelweis and photo-copics of his portraits. The fourth show-case contains the documents and rcliqua that are connected with Semmelweis's death: the bilingual (German-Hungarian) mourning-card was circulatcd by her widow and the other, the Hungarian one was passed round by her family reporting the death of Mrs. Semmelweis. You can also see the epitaph from 73
