Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
CARL BRAUN 277 . . . “I believe that I must ascribe to these arrangements the greatest influence in producing the very good sanitary condition of the Obstetric Clinic at the present time.” Puerperal fever from of old until the advent of Rokitansky was considered by most physicians a disease of miasmatic origin, but the nature of the miasma had not been exactly demonstrated (nicht exakt erwiesen); only this much was correctly settled, that the carrier of the miasma is usually the atmosphere, and that the disposition to infection lasts only during the first eight days of the puerperium.” The advent of Rokitansky ! Í There next follows a long quotation from Litzmann’s work, Das Kindbettfieber, 1844, in support of the views to which Carl Braun is determined to cling. Litzmann’s prescriptions for the prevention of puerperal fever are merely a parody of the English practice for two generations before his time. “ If puerperal fever has once appeared in an institution the accoucheur . . . must never go direct in the same clothing from the room containing the sick puerperae to the normal cases, and he must practice frequent washing with chlorinated water in order to destroy the contagion adhering to him.” ‘‘To Professor Litzmann of Kiel belongs the priority in recommending chlorine disinfection in lying-in hospitals.” After this singular display of ignorance and prejudice Carl Braun next goes on to say: “ For ten years I have devoted the fullest attention to this subject, and I have come to the conclusion that occupation upon the cadaver through cadaveric infection cannot in any way be blamed (durchaus nicht beschuldigt) as a specially important cause of so-called puerperal fever epidemics in lying-in hospitals (an opinion which Virchow unreservedly now maintains), but much more must be considered the special cause of the production and spread of puerperal fever the decomposition of puerperal excreta and the suspension of effluvia in the atmosphere. . . .” We next have some reference to recent valuable contributions to the questions of miasma, and the atmosphere in relation to disease, especially to Pasteur
