Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
PARIS ACADEMY 183 condition of the lying-in woman constitutes what might be designated puerperal traumatism. 3. Epidemic puerperal fever is contagious; it should be termed puerperal typhus. 4. The essential anatomical characters are peritonitis, lymphangitis, and purulent phlebitis. Danyau, Assistant Surgeon at the Maternité, a member of the committee that never reported formally on Arneth’s address in 1851, said: “For me puerperal fever is a malady of miasmatic origin.” As was to be expected of a member of the Maternité staff, Danyau did not think that epidemics were restricted to lying-in hospitals : they often extended over a whole town : the malady might attack women before or during labour. The allegations concerning the transmission of the disease by the medical attendant, as mentioned by Semmelweis of Vienna, are not convincing, and appear to have found few supporters in Germany. . . . Danyau did not like Tarnier’s statistical comparison of the incidence of puerperal fever in the Maternité and in the arrondissement in which it was situated, and he tried in vain to explain it away. Probably he was ignorant of the facts and jealous of the repeated flattering references to the thesis of his junior. He objected to Depaul’s policy of smaller lying-in hospitals on the remarkable ground that “ Cette mesure . . . serait trés préjudiciable a l’enseignement de 1’obstétricie.” Cazeaux recognised only a primitive alteration of the blood, not a consequence. His opinions on most points were just like those of Dubois and Danyau. In times of epidemics there is in addition some mysterious influence the nature of which we do not know. Bouillaud is faithful to his banner of organicien localisateur. He regards puerperal fever as an inflammatory malady modified by the special condition of pregnancy : it is in no way distinct. Dubois, in a second address on the 27th of April, said that, like his colleagues Danyau and Depaul, he taught the doctrine of contagion, but with further evidence he was prepared to modify the import of the term. But in
