Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 97-99. (Budapest, 1982)

TANULMÁNYOK - Codell Carter, K: Semmelweis esetleges hatása Kari Mayrhoferra és a tizenkilencedik századi etiológiai elméletek kidolgozóira (angol nyelven)

correnct (even though, as Späth observed, few obstetricians were ready to admit it), and he noted that even Carl Braun's efforts to control the disease by improving ventilation in the clinic rested on Semmelweis's insights. He then observed that "even Mayerhofens (sic) theory, if it turns out to be correct, can only be seen as further confirmation for Semmelweis's opinions because this theory identifies the vibrions that originate in decaying animal matter as the infective agent."

25 A few months later Mayrhofer delivered a lecture to the same society, the k. k. Gesellschaft der Aerzte in Wien; this lecture provided the basis for the paper that he subsequently published as his third essay on puerperal fever.

26 If, for whatever reason, Mayrhofer had believed that these characterizations were incorrect or misleading, he could have responded to them either in this lecture or in the paper. That he did not reject the association must be interpreted as a tacit acknowledgement that his work was, in fact, a continuation of the investigations that Semmelweis initiated. Why, then, did Mayrhofer never mention Semmelweis? There is an obvious explanation. While he was working as an assistant in the first clinic, Mayrhofer's chief was Carl Braun. Mayrhofer points out that it was Braun who interested him in the etiology of puerperal fever. "He [Braun] encouraged me to the highest degree, he had such an interest in resolving this matter that he would gladly cover the costs of the work from his own means."

21 Mayrhofer does not say whether Braun actually did help defray the costs of his investigation, but in any case, as Professor of Obstetrics in Vienna, Braun held Mayrhofer's destiny in his hands. Carl Braun, of course, is familiar to everyone who has read the Aetiology; Braun was Semmelweis's most bitter rival and antagonist. Throughout his life he remained intransigently opposed to the Semmelweis doctrine. One can estimate the nature of Braun's feelings toward Semmelweis from his treatment of Semmelweis in his publications. In an essay published in 1855, he discussed and rejected Semmelweis's claim that every case of childbed fever shared a common cause.

28

His textbook on obstetrics contains an expanded but otherwise nearly verbatim discussion of the etiology of the disease and, once again, Semmelweis's views are rejected. In this later publication, however, every mention of Semmelweis's name has been deleted

—even in the passages where Braun is discussing and rejecting Semmelweis's own doctrines.

29 One could hardly be surprised if Mayrhofer, Braun's student, would be reluctant to mention Semmelweis by name. In 1865, the year in which Mayrhofer's third essay appeared, A. C. G. Veit explicitly 25 Josef Späth, „Statistische und historische Rückblicke auf die Vorkommnisse der Wiener Gebärhauses während der letzten dreissig Jahre mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Puerperal Erkrankungen," Medizinische Jahrbücher der Gessellschafi der Aerzte in Wien, 1864,20 :1 : 145— 164, p. 162. 26 For a report of the paper see Wochenblatt der Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft der Aerzte in Wien, 1864, 20 : 231 f, 249-255. This is in the same volume as the report of Späth lecture in which Späth connected Mayrhofer with Semmelweis. Remarkably enough, there was some discussion of Mayrhofer's lecture and both Späth and Skoda raised questions, but there seems to have been no mention whatsoever of Semmelweis. Was the connection so obvious to everyone present that no one felt the need to mention it ? 27 Mayrhofer, „Vorkommen von Vibrionen, " op. cit., note 12 above, p. 17. In a report of Mayrhofer's lecture published in the Allgemeine Wiener medizinische Zeitung, 1863, 8 : 63f, one reads that Braun "not only made available the necessary materials from his clinic, but offered to meet the associated costs from his own resources." 28 Carl Braun, "Zur Lehre und Behandlung der Puerperalprocesse und ihrer Beziehungen zu einigen zymotischen Krankheiten," in Baptist Johann Chiari, Carl Braun, and Joseph Späth, Klinic der Geburtshilfe und Gynaekologie, Erlangen, Enke, 1855, p. 451. 29 Braun, op. cit., note 20 above, p. 914.