Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VI. Publication or "Die Aetiologie"
HECKER 241 Munich. According to his report he had a “morbidity” among the paying patients of 4'9 per cent, and in the clinical division of i6‘3 per cent. For this difference he could not see how the Semmelweis Doctrine could apply; he admits that the strictest cleanliness has been of advantage in surgery as well as in midwifery; but it is little use in preventing the colossal outbreaks of puerperal fever. The Doctrine of Semmelweis is “ one-sided, narrow and erroneous.” One more professor of midwifery who is content to raise objections in an offensive manner to the Lehre, which he has not taken the trouble to read, mark, learn and understand. Hecker’s blundering and ill-conditioned criticism was of service to the Lehre in eliciting a response from an unexpected quarter. This was a contribution to the spread of the Doctrine from Semmelweis himself, which appears to have been overlooked by his biographers. It was in the form of a letter addressed to the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette, and published in that journal on June 7, 1S62. It was chiefly a reply to the remarks and objections of Hecker, and it appears to have been written at the time when the “ Open Letters ” were receiving attention from the author and the recipients. This letter of Semmelweis is a calm and clear re-statement of his teaching regarding puerperal fever, and as such it contains nothing new. With regard to Hecker, he says Dr. Hecker makes two objections to the doctrine: (1) that it does not explain how it was that the patients fell ill in rows or sets, and (2) that it does not explain how it was that new-born infants died of puerperal fever. Hecker’s objections only prove, as did everything he said and wrote about Semmelweis, that he had not taken the trouble to read the JEtiologie : he must have depended upon mere hearsay, that is, professional gossip. We have seen in the first portion of the work how the “ reihenweise Erkrankangen ” puzzled Semmelweis at first, and how the discovery cleared away all doubts and difficulties. With regard to the “ sepsis of the Q
