Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 55-56. (Budapest, 1970)

TANULMÁNYOK - Mádai Lajos: Semmelweis és a statisztikai tudomány (angol nyelvű közlemény)

Table S Principal facts and figures of the maternity clinics in Vienna, 1784 1848* Period Length of Deliveries Mortality Period time number number (year) number number percentage 1784-1822 39 71,395 897 1.25 1823-1832 10 28.429 1,509 5.30 1833-1840 1st clinic (physicians) 8 23.059 1,505 6.56 2nd clinic (midwives) 13.097 73] 5.58 1841-1846 1st clinic (physicians) 6 20.042 1,989 9.92 2nd clinic (midwives) 17.791 691 3.88 1848 1st clinic (physicians) 3.556 45 1.27 2nd clinic (midwives) 1 3.219 43 1.33 *Semmelweis l.c.p. 118., 183 — 184. XXIV. Táblázat. (Prepared by the author on the basis of Semmelweis's various tables. — The Editor) Between 1784 and 1822 the conditions among the women in child-bed were still so favourable that the mortality rate was only 1.25 per cent and in twentyfive years out of the nearly four decades it was only 0.00 per cent. The rise of mortality was statistically recognizable following the spread of pathologic anatomy (5.30 per cent). The next important group of the maternity department of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus. From that date on the 1st clinic — where Semmelweis was to work — served for the training of physicians while the 2nd for that of midwives. But in those eight years the medical students and future midwives were equally distributed between the two clinics. During that period there was no essential difference between the mortality rates of the two hospitals (6.5 and 5,8 per cent respectively). The students of midwifery performed pathologicoanatomical exercises neither in that period, nor later, only the physicians and the students. In the autumn of 1840 the existing training system was changed and from the next year on the 1st clinic served solely for the training of medical students and physicians in obstetrics, while the 2nd was the midwives' training hospital. The difference in the mortality rates (9.92 and 3.88 per cent respectively) first appeared in that period. The 2nd maternity clinic meant an ideal control-group, and for its recognitions the credit must go to the statistical vision of Semmelweis. The establishment of a control-group is an indespensable element of up-to-date clinical and epidemiological examinations, it permits the comparison and control of the parameters of the phenomenon under examination (11). By exposing the different mortality rates of the infants in the two clinics il*