Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
III. Life in Vienna
THE DISCOVERY 49 in the same upper extremity, and he died from pleurisy pericarditis, peritonitis, and meningitis, and a few days before his death metastasis occurred in one of the eyes. . . . In the excited condition in which I then was, it rushed into my mind with irresistible clearness that the disease from which Kolletschka had died was identical with that from which I had seen so many hundreds of lying-in women die. The puerperae also died from phlebitis, lymphangitis, peritonitis, pleuritis, meningitis, and in them also metastases sometimes occurred. “ Day and night the vision of Ivolletschka’s malady haunted me, and with ever increasing conviction I recognised the identity of the disease from which Kolletschka died with the malady which I had observed to carry off so many lying-in women.” The former conclusions with regard to the identity of the fatal disease of new-born infants with that childbed fever so fatal to the mothers also recurred to the mind, and supported the conviction with regard to the malady of Kolletschka.” The cause of the fatal illness of Kolletschka was well known : it was the wound produced by a dissecting scalpel which was foul with cadaveric particles. It was not the wound, but the wound rendered unclean by cadaveric material, which had produced the fatal result; and Kolletschka was far from being the first to die in this manner. If then it be granted that the disease by which Kolletschka lost his life and that from which so many lying-in women died, are identical, the cause of the disease in the lying-in women and that of Kolletschka must be the same. In the case of Kolletschka the cause of the disease was cadaveric material carried into the vascular system : I must therefore put this question to myself : Did then the individuals whom I have seen die from an identical disease also have cadaveric matter carried into the vascular system ? To this question I must answer, Yes!” Owing to the anatomical tendency of the Vienna School of Medicine, professors, assistants, and students E
