Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
294 Mc.CLINTOCK cause alone. The apparatus was introduced for the first time in 1864, but according to Späth’s report the mortality in both divisions of the Vienna Obstetric Clinic had sunk to ro6 per cent, in 1863. v. Winckel might have added that Späth frankly attributed his success to the introduction of the Semmelweis prophylaxis : it was Carl Braun who declared the value of disinfection disproved, and obviously exaggerated the efficacy of ventilation and warming. Me. Clintock, 1869. We have read with regret the opinions of Dr. Denham, publi/shed in the Dublin Quarterly, 1862 : we think it interesting to read an account of Dr. Me. Clintock’s conclusions seven years later. “On the production of puerperal fever by inoculation by the accoucheur,” by Dr. Me. Clintock, President of the Pathological Society of Dublin. Dublin Quarterly, August, 1869. “Though but a limited contagionist, still I hold very strongly the producibility of puerperal fever by inoculation ; as, for instance, where the hands of the accoucheur, or those retaining some necroscopic matter or septic poison of any kind, come in contact with the highly absorbing surfaces of the maternal canals. The experience of Dr. Semmelweis at the Vienna Lying-in Hospital is, no doubt, familiar to you all . . . “I cannot help thinking that if students, while attending at lying-in hospitals, were precluded from dissecting or from being dressers at Surgical hospitals, it would help to lessen the frequency of puerperal fever. I also think it would be well if medical officers of lying-in hospitals were to abstain altogether from taking any share in post-mortem examinations. ...” He went on to say that he very much blamed himself for not having rigidly acted on this rule when in medical charge of the Rotunda. Dr. Me. Clintock could be no longer a young man in 1869, but he had not ceased to observe and learn as had
