Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 309 With regard to the precautions to be taken to prevent the spread of puerperal fever, he did not think it was necessary for a medical man to seclude himself for more than a week from midwifery practice . . . probably by that time the poison will have passed out of the system. “Immediately after seeing a case of puerperal fever I go home and, before going to bed, take a warm bath and wash myself with carbolic soap, and on the next day I take a Turkish bath” . . . “We should be very careful not to wear the same clothes.” Dr. Graily Hewitt, Professor of Midwifery in University College, considered puerperal fever “essentially a form of blood-poisoning” . . . it is a form of pyaemia. He referred to the late Sir James Simpson’s teaching to the same effect, and continued : “What I have seen since has led me to endorse that view of the matter in the strongest manner possible.” There are two classes of cases of puerperal fever : (a) Those in which there is evidence of the introduction into the system from without of a morbific animal poison; (b) cases which do not resemble these, in which the evidence is wanting of the introduction from without of such a morbific poison. In the first class, the infection is conveyed by the medical man or midwife by means of the hand : “and I believe that the spaces beneath the nails and under the skin, which covers the nails are extremely liable to harbour these destructive animal products” . . . “It seems to me rather unlikely that the clothes carry infection so readily” . . . very great attention should be bestowed on cleansing the hands . . . any animal poison introduced from without may produce what we term puerperal pyaemia, the same as may be produced by a student who is handling surgical wounds in the hospital and attending midwifery cases . . . Poison may be introduced from without in case of laceration of the perinaeum . . . The class of cases corresponding to what Dr. Barnes calls autogenetic, is illustrated by use of sponge-tents in
