Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
310 OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON the non-pregnant. Concurrently with the commencement of the atack of puerperal pyaemia the involution of the uterus is absolutely retarded. The contractile power of the uterus fails in some cases after labour : the expulsion of debris ceases, and there occurs a suction action of the uterus by which the debris is taken up into the circulation. Mr. Callender, the surgeon, was present as a visitor. Like Billroth, of Vienna, he was opposed to Lister, and referred to the fact: he was good enough, however, to admit the value of antiseptics. His speech was merely a commentary on the discussion, and on the analogy between puerperal fever and surgical wounds. In the discussion continued on the 2nd of June, Dr. Arthur Farre made the opening speech. There is nothing in this lengthy address worthy of attention now, except the references to Dr. Kirkland’s essay on Childbed Fever, published in 1774. “Having asked your attention to the works of this author, and shown how far his idea seemed to be in a measure coincident with those which are now under discussion ...” Dr. Savage and Dr. Wynn Williams, of the Samaritan Hospital for Women, had little to add in elucidation of the subject. The latter had never had a fatal case of puerperal fever since beginning to use iodine as a disinfectant twenty years ago. “As to bacteria—a delusion and a snare” ! Dr. Playfair, Professor of Obstetric Medicine in King’s College, commented on the course of the discussion up to his own address, and referred to the “remarkably little reliable knowledge we have about the subject on which we are talking.” He did not believe in a miasma arising from the puerperal patient: there was no evidence to show that there had ever been an epidemic of puerperal fever ... “I believe that the theory which considers the so-called puerperal fever to be practically the same disease as surgical septicaemia or pyaemia ... is the one which is most consonant with the facts of the case; that it arises from the contact of
