Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 10-11. (Budapest, 1958)

Several of Semmelweis' biographers, and, as far as I can remember also the Semmelweis-film produced some years ago in Hungary have been trying to represent the struggle of Semmelweis as if his temperament and uncompromising character, by plunging him in personal conflicts Whit .his professor-colleagues would have played a decisive role in the struggle. There has been a tendency toward representing Semmelweis' fate as being entirely dominated by the vanity of Semmelweis' chief Professor Klein. Undoubtedly, the obstetricians of Semmelweis' age had a hard time to get accustomed to the idea that the appearance of the puerperal fever was caused by the obstetricians themselves. The problem however, has a much deeper lying root. Semmelweis was involved in a life-struggle not only with the prestige of obstetrics of his age — he also came in conflict with the entire erroneous natural phylosophy, i .e. with the whole inexact conception which then dominated scientific medical thinking, while the leader of this conception wos not lesser man than Virchow himself. How did Semmelweis get into controversy with Virchow? Virchow. as one of the most outstanding and authoritative representatives of anatomical thiniking appeared on the scene some years earlier than Semmelweis. Virchow's work which laid the foundation of cellularpathology was published in 1858. In his well-known maxim: ,.Sedes morborum cella" Virchow claims that the diseases take place in the biological units of the organism, i. e. in the cells. According to him, the essence of the diseases is to be found in the abnormal biological functioning, in the transformation and in the death of the cells. Virchow tried to reveal under his microscope the pathological transformations of the cells in consequence of diseases. Yet, while striking a heavy blow at the then prevailing vitalism, at the demoniac forces he became the victim of mistakes thus throwing open a wide door to the idealistic counter-attacks which had become stronger at the same time with the strengthening of the bourgeoisie. What were Virchow's fundamental errors in consequence of whidh he entered in conflict with Semmelweis and Robert Koch? Which were those erroneous views of Virchow that hindered the scientific progress of his age? 1. In continuing and improving the anatomical conception of his age in the evolution of sciences Virchow arrived at the pathologic-