Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
III. Life in Vienna
ELIMINATION OF FACTORS 29 follow the Semmelweis narrative of the /Etiologie. It should always be remembered that the VEtiologie was written fully ten years after the discovery was first announced, and it was published just ten years after Semmelweis had returned to his Vaterstadt, and had ceased to communicate with all the old friends and opponents in Vienna. The great Lying-in Hospital of Vienna is divided into two portions, called the First and the Second Division. From October, 1840, the students, both men and women, were taught separately in the two divisions. Before that time students of medicine and midwives received clinical instruction in equal numbers in both divisions. The statistics obtained during the years of instruction in common form an important element in the experimental evidence by concomitant variation of the etiology of puerperal fever, which had to be developed later in the history of the hospital. Since the division of the hospital into two parts, with medical students restricted to one division and midwives to the other, the mortality from puerperal processes had shown a remarkable difference between the First Clinic and the Second. This fact is brought out in a remarkably striking way by the first table of statistics prepared by Semmelweis: Table No. I. FIRST DIVISION. SECOND DIVISION. Cases. Deaths. Per Cent. Cases. Deaths. Per Cent. 1841 •• 3>036 237 7*7 ••• 2,442 86 3’5 1842 .. 3,287 öl« 15-8 ... 2,659 202 7'5 1843 3,060 274 8-9 ... 2,739 164 5'9 1844 •• 3»i57 260 8'2 ... 2,956 68 23 *845 .. 3,492 24I 68 ... 3,241 66 2 1846 4,010 459 n’4 ••• 3,754 105 2’7 20,042 1,989 9*92 ... i7,79i 691 3'38 say 9-9 say 3-3
