Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 62-63. (Budapest, 1971)
TANULMÁNYOK - Meigs, J. Wister: Kontagionisták, antikontagionisták és a gyermekágyi láz (angol nyelven)
Ill In summary, the middle and late nineteenth century epidemics of puerperal fever were due not to anticontagionism or anticontagionists, but to an inadequate contagionism. Contagionism of the English type could not cope with the risks added by anesthesia, especially chloroform, and surgery, and concomitant increases in examinations of women in labor. The only clinician with a reasonably effective program based on sound experiment was Semmelweis who died prematurely. Not until bacteriology was well advanced could obstetrical practice begin to approach the poetic ideal. With inadequate information and methods, faced by appalling environmental risks they could not control, the nineteenth century obstetricians reacted as harrassed human beings always have. They projected their feelings of fear and guilt wherever they could, to get them out of their conscious minds, and then did their best with daily problems that ended too often in deaths they did not know how to avoid. Finally, with regard to the author of "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever", consider what E. P. Whipple said of him in 1886. "Oliver Wendell Holmes —wit, satirist, humorist, novelist, scholar, scientists —is, above everything a poet, for the qualities of the poet pervade all the operations of his variously gifted mind" [33], When you study the complex facts and opinions about puerperal fever history, it may help if you read Holmes's essay on a poetic wave length. REFERENCES [1] Ackerknecht, E. H., History and Geography of the Most Important Diseases. Hafner Publ. Co. 1965, pp. 12-16. [2] Auden, W. H. : The Dyer's Hand: Poetry and the Poetic Process, The Anchor Review A 109 # 2 Doubleday 1957. [3] Board of Superintendence of Dublin Hospital. Annual Reports 1854-1900, Alex Thorn for Her Majesty's Stationery Office. [4] Boston Lying-in Hospital. Annual Reports, 1873-1915, John Wilson & Son. [5] Browne, O'D T. D. : The Rotunda Hospital 1745-1945. E. & S. Livingstone, Ltd. 1947 (5a, p. 120) (5b, p. 109) (5c, p. 110) (5d, p. 124) (5e, p. 140) (5f, p. 220). [6] Collins, R. : A Practical Treatise on Midwifery, Wm. D. Ticknor 1841 (in Library of Practical Medicine, Vol. XI, Press of T. R. Marvin.). [7] Cuddy, J. W. C. : The True Physician, The Baltimorean Sat. Feb. 12, 1887. [8] Cutter, I. S. & Viets, H. R. : A Short History of Midwifery, W. B. Saunders Co. 1964, pp. 134-135. [9] Gyorgyey, F. A. : Puerperal Fever 1847-1861, Dissertation, Dpt. of History of Science and Medicine, Yale University 1968. [10] Holmes, O. W. : The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. New England Quarterly Jour. Med. & Surg. 1:503-530, 1843. [11] Holmes, O. W. : Medical Essays, Houghton Mifflin & Co. 1891 11a, p. 131; lib, p. 166, pp. 103-128, 195.
