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)

pointed out that in addition to confirming Semmelweis's findings, Mayrhofer's work completely refuted Braun's opinion that ventilation had a significant influence on the incidence of puerperal fever.

30 Through the next decade, Mayrhofer's discovery was regularly cited as a continuation of and as a vindication for Semmelweis's etiological theory.

31 Moreover, while Braun, as Professor of Obstetrics and as a successful writer, was well known and frequently cited in obstetrical literature, the Semmelweis-Mayrhofer view of puerperal fever continued to receive progressively more attention and progressively more favorable attention, while Braun's own view passed into relative oblivion.

32 Given Braun's power and influence in Vienna, this widespread interpretation of and interest in Mayrhofer's work would certainly explain why Mayrhofer never received the recognition in Vienna that he deserved. It remains to decide what influence Mayrhofer had on the development of germ theory. It is especially important to determine whether, and to what extent, his assertions that puerperal fever had a universal necessary cause influenced his successors. In this respect, two facts are clear. First, as many early contributors to germ theory recognized, Mayrhofer deserved more consideration and recognition than he was given.

33 Second, Mayrhofer actually received more attention than one might be inclined to think. By about 1873, several different human diseases, such as anthrax and relapsing fever, had become associated with parasitic microorganisms. However, it is obvious from contemporary surveys of this literature that the overwhelming majority of investigations of parasitic microorganisms focused on the infected wound diseases.

34 Moreover, by this time puerperal fever was generally regarded as an infected wound disease, exactly as Semmelweis and Mayrhofer had maintained.

35 Thus, work on puerperal fever was actually more important in the A. C. G. Veit, "Ueber die in der geburtshilflichen Klinik im Sommer 1864 und 1864-5 aufgetretenen puerperalen Erkrankungen," Monatschrift für Geburtskunde und Frauenkrankheiten. 1865, 25: 127-155, 161-208, see especially pp. 195f, 207f. For example, see the report of the gynecological section of the fortieth meeting of the Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte in Hannover 1865 in Monatsschrift für Geburtskunde, 1865, 26 : 423f; Bohr "Ueber die Infectionstheorie des Puerperalfiebers und ihre Consequenzen für die Sanitätspolizei," Monatsschrift für Geburtskunde, 1868, 32 : 401-433; and Haussmann, "Zur Aetiologie des Wochenbettfiebers," Centraiblatt für die medicinischen Wissenschaften. 1874, 12 : 433-437. I have identified more than fifty publications between 1965 and 1875 in which the views of Semmelweis or Mayrhofer or both with respect to childbed fever were discussed; over this same decade I have found less than one tenth as many discussions of Braun's views. After discussing Mayrhofer's experimental inoculation of rabbits with relatively pure cultures of vibrions, Johannes von Orth observed that "remarkably enough, this obvious and conclusive experiment was no sufficiently appreciated and in the next few years there was almost no subsequent research." "Untersuchungen über Puerperalfieber," Virchow''

s Archives, 1873, 58 : 437— 460, p. 437. In Mayrhofer's obituary notice, the editor of the Wiener medizinische Presse observed that Mayrhofer's first experiments, "which followed Pasteur's investigations, were unfortunately not adequately valued or utilized." Wiener medizinische Press, 1882. 23 : cols. 778f. See, for example, Herman Eberhard Richter, "Die neuern Kenntnisse von den krankmachender Schmarotzerpilzen," Schmidt's Jahrbücher der gesammten Medizin, 1867, 755:81-98 and Birch-Hirschfeld, "Die neuern pathologisch-anatomischen Untersuchungen über krankmachende Schmarotzerpilze," Schmidt's Jahrbücher der gesammten Medizin, 1872, 755 : 97-109. See, for example, Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Steudener, "Ueber pflanzliche Organismen als Krankheitserreger," Volkmann'

s klinische Vortrage, Innere Medizin, 1872, 7:38:283-308; and T. Halbertsma, "Zur Puerperalfieberfrage," Centraiblatt für die medizinische Wissenschaft 1870, 8 : 466f.