Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
IV. Spread of the Doctrine During the Vienna Period
86 SKODA’S ADDRESS of the opponents of Semmelweis in after times. If they affected to ignore the humble young Hungarian, they could not overlook a pronouncement by a man in the great professional position which Skoda then occupied. From the history of the Discovery Skoda went on to the pathology of puerperal fever, and he gave a remarkably clear exposition of the phenomena and symptoms produced by infection. Much of what he said might stand in a modern text-book : all that is wanting is the bacteriology, then unknown, and about the practical value of bacteriological details, beyond what was known from the first to Lister and his early disciples, there is room for much difference of opinion. For example, the following short extract: “From these facts we may conclude that the pyaemia of the puerperal woman develops as a rule from endometritis or phlebitis uterina. So we are concerned, in the first place, with the causes of endometritis and phlebitis uterina.“ In the course of his address he made a reference to the Lying-in Hospital of Prague, which was the origin of an acrimonious and long-drawn-out controversy. He said : “ A well-grounded view to bring the matter into a clear light lay in the circumstance that in the Prague Lying-in Institution the cases of disease were from time to time very numerous, and according to all appearance they arose from the same causes as in Vienna. I urged therefore that the process of chlorine disinfection should be introduced into the Prague Lying-in Hospital. . . . Those who at that institution maintain that puerperal sickness depends upon epidemic influences appear to have got the upper hand, and they seem hitherto to have employed the chlorine washing either not at all or not with serious earnestness.” It was unfortunate for the doctrine that Skoda laid stress on cadaveric poison only as the cause of puerperal infection, and Skoda’s great position insured universal perusal of anything that he cared to publish; but it should be remembered that two years had already elapsed
