Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
268 LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH creased from day to day, and before the end of the month some deplorable incidents had occurred. Some of the professors, including von Balassa, held a consultation and suggested venaesection, cold-water cure, and other futilities. £je complained to his wife that something had gone wrong in his head, but to her and ' to the children he behaved “wie ein gutes krankes Kind ” (like a good sick child). V After about a week of anxious observation, the medical friends came to the sad conclusion that the patient must be removed to a lunatic asylum in Vienna. The chief ground for this decision appears to have been the hope that some good might be done him by the care of the Director of the institution, Dr. Riedel, who had acquired a great reputation as an alienist. So the sad journey was begun on the last day of July, 1865, by the company of friends and relatives, including wife and infant child. The following day Semmelweis was taken by his friend, Fedinand Hebra, under some pretext to the asylum, and detained there. One of the medical staff soon discovered an injury to a finger of the right hand, which had probably resulted from one of the last gynaecological operations, and had been overlooked. The wound had become gangrenous, and had perforated and disintegrated a joint. Cellulitis spread along the arm, and after the formation of metastases, the final aspect of the disease became that of pyo-pneumo-thorax, to which the sufferer succumbed on the 13th of August. Thus, within a fortnight of leaving his home in Buda- Pesth, Semmelweis was no more: he died from that disease to the prevention of which his whole professional life had been devoted—the disease which had carried off his friend Kolletschka, and put himself on the track of his discovery. “So he died a victim to that other disease whose identity with puerperal fever he was the first to recognize, to the prevention of which, in midwifery, gynaecology and surgery, he ‘devoted his energies as a teacher.’ ’’— v. Waldheim, 224.
