Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
78 HEBRA’S SECOND ARTICLE in the varying degree to which patients are susceptible. There is much in the epidemic atmospheric influences in which the constitutio annua in winter and spring is an important factor. “We often had the experience of the spread of an epidemic in the hospital by the admission of a patient already infected, and the conveyance of the contagion to other women owing to the atmosphere in which they were thus placed.” Tilanus from his own experience entirely agrees with Semmelweis as to the importance of cadaveric poison in producing puerperal fever, and he now employs rigorous measures of preventing infection from this cause. That the mischief may be diminished by means of chlorine disinfection he quite agrees, but that it can be completely rooted out by this process he cannot yet believe. “ I close with the wish that your efforts in the cause of humanity may deal a powerful blow to the ruinous disbelief in the contagious nature of this disease and of the injurious effects of cadaveric poison. When a man otherwise so able as Kiwisch von Rotterau declares that he frequently attends parturient and puerperal women immediately after making postmortem examinations, it certainly sounds horrible, and must at the same time give an example of rashness and carelessness to the uninstructed.” We observe in the opinions of Tilanus a detachment from the strict epidemic theory then universally prevalent in Germany, and a sympathy with the British theory of contagion. The liberal and broad-minded character of the Amsterdam professor is shown by his sympathy with Semmelweis and partial acceptance of his doctrine. Hebra’s Second Article. The appeal to the Directors of Lying-in Hospitals, whether they were Clinics for students of medicine or schools for midwives, contained in Hebra’s article, published in December, 1847, met with little or no response. So after the first excitement of the revo
