Sinclair, Sir William J.: Semmelweis. His Life and his Doctrine (Manchester, 1909)
VII. Last Illness and Death
278 CARL BRAUN and the producers of fermentation, and to Dr. Mayrhofer, Braun’s own assistant, who had recently discovered vibriones suspended in the air of a room. As was inevitable, Braun’s interpretation of the new discoveries was deeply coloured by his own preconceptions, and was very wide of the mark. The reference to the work of Mayrhofer is the first mention on an important occasion of the beginnings of bacteriology in the investigation of the causes and prevention of puerperal disease. The work of Mayrhofer is at once commandeered to support Braun’s atmospheric and ventilation theories . . . the possibility is not to be disputed that the vibriones from the excreta of healthy or diseased individuals may invade the atmosphere of a room, remain suspended, and ultimately reach the mucosa of the lungs or of the uterus, penetrate blood-vessels and give rise to fatal diseases. This brings him back to ventilation ! There is seldom in any of Carl Braun’s contributions to the subject of puerperal fever an absence of some attack on Semmelweis more or less open or implicit. Here we have the usual attempt to belittle the man whom he has so long and cruelly reviled. Carl Braun and his hearers must have been all acquainted with the “Ätiologie . . .” published three years previously, and he no doubt smarted under the criticism and sarcasms contained in many pages of the Opinions. Carl Braun had discoursed on the efficacy of ventilation and cleanliness, but the advantages of ventilation and cleanliness had formed the subject of the enthusiastic admiration of Arneth, whose book was published in Vienna in 1853. Arneth also became acquainted with chlorine disinfection which had been in use at the Dublin Rotunda at least from early in the century. Yet Braun ascribes priority to Litzmann of Kiel, who wrote at the earliest in 1844. Considering the terms in which Carl Braun describes those futile attempts to prevent puerperal fever by “systematic and diligent use” of chemical disinfectants and the practical conclusions which he draws, it may not be altogether irrelevant to mention some of the practices
