Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VIII. Forerunners and Contemporaries
322 FRANCE When Boer visited Paris in 1788 he could not gain access to the lying-in hospital except for the influence of Marie Antoinette, exercised in his favour through the Austrian ambassador. It was the same with Osiander early in the 19th century; and Arneth, whose visit occurred so late as 1850-51, gives an interesting account of his experiences in the matter of admission. “ For foreign medical visitors it is almost an impossibility to see the Maternité. More than once it has been found, even by appeal to diplomatic influence, impossible to obtain permission to visit the Maternité more than once. . . . Even the members of the staff of the institution have to make a formal application to the lay directors for permission to take a visitor with them into the Maternité. ...” ‘‘As a school for midwives, Arneth considers the Maternité unique in the world (Vielleicht einzig in der Welt) in its efficiency. . . . And this great institution is closed to students of medicine, so that in the 19th century in the capital city of France, there is no midwifery clinic for medical students. Midwives establish small maternity hospitals, and give theoretical and practical clinical instruction in them, including the performance of obstetric operations. In 1831 v. Siebold saw a midwife’s advertisement to that effect. The pretext for the hermetic closing of the Maternité was a regard for decency. This in Paris and in the country which had witnessed the orgies of three revolutions ! It was only in 1834 that a small lying-in hospital was opened for the clinical teaching of students of medicine, and it was placed under the same chief, Dubois, Director of the Maternité. v. Siebold, in his “ History of Obstetrics,” says: ‘‘Midwives continue to give practical instruction to the students of medicine. Access to the Maternité, accorded to the students, can be the only means of remedying this great defect . . . and rousing in France the love of obstetrics ... by which alone the progress of obstetrics can be assured.” (Herrgott’s Trans., Vol. ii, p. 655.)
