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

TANULMÁNYOK - Regöly-Mérei, Gyula: The Pathological Reconstruction of Semmelweis's Disease on the Basis of the Catamnestic Analysis and Palaeopathological Examination (angol nyelvű közlemény)

Hungarian words of the into Hungary immigrated German settlers has a character of its own today. For example, instead of the hard sounding Hungarian "z" (like Zenith in English) they use the softer "sz" (similar to sail in English), instead of "k" they pronounce "g" (like great) etc. According, a part of the orthographical mistakes Semmelweis made derives from his phonetic spelling (e.g. "füszet" instead of "füzet"). I have examined the word Benedek has read as "fűmet" enlarged and submitted to ultra-violet rays but could not form a decided opinion for if he had used another type "z", it could be read—as I do in fact—

"füszet". I am certain that Semmelweis— because of his fundamentally impatient nature (that also manifested itself in the tone used in debates)—never went over his manuscripts, and that he sent the draft of his book to the printing office without having read it through previously. This explains why sometimes the last letter of some words was omitted (e.g. "fölira" instead of "fölirat"). This happened earlier too, and he mis-spelled words e.g. "acadmischen" instead of "academischen" (Memorandum, 1858) and "nem erőszakonak" instead of "nem erőszakosnak" (in the expertise made together with Arányi), "összegyűtött" instead of "összegyűjtött" (Memorandum to the Consilium Locumtenentiale, 1862), "Englisch" instead of "English" (letter to Roiith, 1862), "seyt" instead of "seyd" (Report on the training of midwives, 1857), "Procès" and "Punck" instead of "Process" and ''Punkt" (expertise after 1855), "weis" instead of "weiss" (letter to Markusovszky, 1847 or 1848), etc. He scarcely used punctuation marks, commas and full stops. Benedek rightly mentions (7) that geminates, indicating conjugation, are lacking ("cimal," in my view it should rather be: "cimel"). A survey of Semmelweis's writings shows that he rarely used twin letters but applied instead small horizontal lines above the consonant as it was customary formerly. He generally wrote his own name as: Semelweis. Here are some examples supporting the aforesaid: in his second letter to Markusovszky he wrote "erinern," in a report on his students "vorgenomenen," in a petition in 1858 "Sume," in the budget of the clinic once again "Sume," in a report on midwives in 1857 "Hebamen" etc. It is understandable that he omitted to put on this sign when writing notes in a hurry. However, the content of the writings, the material proofs of the expert opinions and the motivations point to a high-class mental activity. The calculations (budget of the clinic), library notes and, earlier, his book and the Open Letters are faultless, an evidence, which almost excludes the possiblity of paralysis. But let us survey the characteristics of the confused writings pointing to paralysis, a question that had earlier been dealt with by Erlenmeyer (20), These are, according to Obersteiner's etc. statement, the following : changes in the character of the writing (tracing, ductus, pattern of letters, sloping backward or forward, heavy type of letters), ataxic writing, changing size of the letters, smaller or larger type letters than used previously, flourishes and loops, unjustified underlining. The most important, however, is dysarthria amounting to dysgraphia, i.e. missing letters and syllables (incomplete words) or the repetition of the letter. In the writings of Semmelweis incomplete words cannot be met with