Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
ROUTH, OF LONDON 75 Routh. Semmelweis, when Die /Etiologie was written, saw these incidents in a different light: — “ That Simpson in his haste must have mistaken my opinion on the origin of childbed fever as identical with the opinion of the medical profession in England, is evident from a correspondence which I had with Dr. F. H. C. Routh, of London.” .... “ Dr. Routh visited as a student the First Obstetric Clinic in Vienna when I was assistant, and what he witnessed convinced him of the truth of my Lehre. He returned to his native country with the resolution to spread the knowledge of my doctrine there. “ I received the first letter from him dated London, January 23, 1849.” English medical men were probably not so conversant with the German language then as they are nowadays, and Routh wrote in Latin, which was still, in spite of the secular agitation against it, the formal official language of the educated Magyar. Routh’s letter was as follows : — ‘‘Comitiis in ultimis septimanis Novembris (1848) convocatis, illic discursus, in quo tuam inventionem enunciavi, reddens tibi, ut voluit justitia, maximam gloriam, praelectus fuit. Enim vero possum dicere, totum discursum optime exceptum fuisse, et multi inter socios doctissimos attestaverunt argumentum convincens fuisse. Inter hos precipue Webster, Copland, et Murphy, viri et doctores clarissimi, optime locuti sunt. In Lancetto Novembris, 1848, possis omnia de hac controversia contingentia legere............. .... Febris ne puerperalis rarior est quam antea? Si morbus sic periculosus in cubilibus obstetriciis non adsit ut ante, certe effectus magni momenti denuo firmatus. In Praga quoque, ubi febris puerperalis tum frequenter obvenire solebat, eisdem causis consecuta fuit ingenerari ! Dr. Routh was the first Englishman to proclaim the Semmelweis doctrine in England. He read a paper at
