Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
CARL BRAUN 159 students against it, and he has consequently produced a dangerous sort of levity among his students in regard to prophylaxis. What is to be expected from men so badly taught when they assume the responsibilities of independent practice?” According to Carl Braun there are thirty causes of puerperal fever, of which the 28th in his list is cadaveric infection. In commenting on this etiological factor he says: “ As the chief, and in fact as almost the only cause of puerperal fever epidemics, Semmelweis endeavoured in 1847 to establish the theory of cadaveric infection according to which the hands after manipulation of the cadaver become the carriers of infection. . . . ”... Semmelweis found in Skoda a champion of this doctrine.” Commenting on this disingenuous passage Semmelweis says: “The reader sees how badly Carl Braun has used the opportunity offered him of learning something since he knows only one source of decomposed animal matter, namely the cadaver, and only one carrier of the decomposed matter, the examining finger. . . . The reader knows that there are three sources of decomposed matter, and infection occurs more from one source at one time, more from another source at another time. In Vienna it w7as undoubtedly the cadaver which was the commonest source of infection. ... In the hospital of St. Roche at Buda-Pesth the source of infection was the surgical department; and Chiari relates how at Prague two puerperal fever epidemics were produced owing to putrid discharges from the genitals of patients during labour . . . and in the University Obstetric Clinic at Buda-Pesth it was foul bedding and bed linen which supplied the decomposed animal matter. “The carrier of the decomposed matter is not only the examining finger, but any object which is rendered unclean by the decomposed matter and then comes into contact with the genitals of the individual.” Then follows here once more a clear concise statement of the doctrine and the prophylaxis. (./Etiolp. 489.)
