Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
I. Introduction
4 SEMMELWEIS Deplorable as some of the incidents illustrative of this psychological phase of the controversy may be, its value to teach and to warn can hardly be overrated. When disputes on even minor medical questions arise and participants say rash and harsh things in their perfervid zeal for a party or an issue, no great harm is done : it is when keen self-conscious partisans prepare and shoot poisoned arrows in the library or lecture-room, that they might even at the present time do worse than “Remember Semmelweis.” The story of Semmelweis and his achievements is hardly known in England, even now after the patriotic celebrations in Buda-Pesth at the unveiling of the international statue in 1906. As far as we have learned there is in existence only one biography of Semmelweis in the English language, the short monograph by Dr. Duka, a Hungarian patriot of the Revolution, published in 1888. No attempt has been made at any time to place before the English reader the chief work “Die Hitiologie,” or to give fairly full details of the life history of Semmelweis. Our chief object in compiling this treatise is to bring to the notice of the Anglo-Celtic races, to whom English is the mother tongue, the story of Semmelweis, and to try to do justice to his memory. Any writing from however obscure a source, which calls strongly and truthfully the attention of the medical profession to the still deplorable ravages of puerperal fever, cannot fail to be in some measure beneficial. That end, however, can be gained by the vast number of contributions to the hundreds of medical journals throughout the world which are always seeing the light, and may ultimately attain the goal which we all devoutly desire. But the story of how the endeavour to eradicate childbed fever originated, with some hope of success, when the “eternally true” etiology of puerperal fever was first revealed to Europe, should serve for inspiration and encouragement to all earnest and thoughtful members of the profession of medicine. An attempt is made here
