Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
V. Life in Buda-Pesth
PARIS ACADEMY 185 the disease as symptomatic. He took the side of the latter. Puerperal fever is a disease primarily local, accompanied by various lesions. . . . The lesion of most frequent occurrence is peritonitis complicated in various ways. . . . The element of puerperality does not make this a malady apart of which the basis dominates the form, of which the gravity is not measured by the extent of the inflammation, but which depends on a special element . . . which dominates it. . . Velpean then discussed the question of overcrowding as an etiological factor, and considered the influence attributed to it as not proved. Contagion is an element more delicate to appreciate. He would not like to admit what Arneth (Semmelweis) says about it, nor the opinion of Simpson who thinks that puerperal fever can be propagated by the medical practitioner or by the midwife. . . . He could find no proof in favour of essentiality. He believed that in metritis, phlebitis, and perimetritis we often had the results of traumatism of the genital organs during labour. There was nothing specific about it. The remaining meetings were occupied almost entirely with replies, and produced nothing new. This discussion by “ les maitres frangais les plus autorisés” was followed by a less formal and even more prolonged debate in medical circles, and in the medical press of Paris and provincial France. The report of the discussion in the Academy was translated into German and other languages, and the proceedings created more or less interest over the greater part of Europe. But the debate, as was to have been expected from the first, proved barren of results; it only demonstrated the phenomenal diversity of opinion which then existed in Paris on everything relating to puerperal fever. In the course of the voluminous press correspondence and articles which followed the discussion, Dr. Auber, the author of a treatise on Medical Philosophy, summed up the discussion in this way: “Among the thirteen
