Antall József szerk.: Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 5. (Budapest, 1972)

The Life of Ignác Semmelweis (1818-1865)

to make their choice. The birth rate of illegitimate children in the towns of Europe, including those of the Monarchy, was rather high, especially where soldiers were stationing. Puerperal fever took its victimes and the cause of the disease could not be solved. Semmelweis was a gay, carefree young student when he arrived at Vienna. His sensitive soul, humanism, however, was greatly perturbed and deeply moved by the ravages of puerperal fever. He could not reconcile himself to the inescapable facts of the mortality rate or the established old and recent explanations. Day after day he saw the mothers in great joy and then die, without being able to save them. Later he himself described the history of his discovery. In his tormented state of mind everything seemed problematic and undecipherable, only "the great number of the dead was an irrevocable reality". His professor in pathology was Rokitansky. He himself looked for an answer in the dissecting-room. Each morning he conducted post-mortem examinations and the symptoms were always the same

: inflammation of the arteries, the lymph vessels, the peritoneum, the pleurisy, the pericardium, and the meninx. On the basis of Skoda's elimination method, he weighed all the theories which considered puerperal fever first at all an epidemic. He refused the idea of an epidemic outbreak on account of the different mortality rates between the two clinics. There was no epidemic in the town either. No effect of the seasons could be observed in the case of puerperal fever, an unusual symptom, however, in case of epidemics. Why could the closing of the clinic stop the spreading of the "epidemic"? No "injury through force" could be the cause. The other assumed factors (pudency, rough examination, therapy) were the same in both clinics. What could be the local cause in the ist Clinic, the clinic of Professor Klein? After a few months' work Semmelweis had to give up his post as assistant according to the previous agreement when Dr. Breit

, his predecessor, returned. He began to learn English and wished to leave for Dublin to study obstetric methods there where puerperal mortality rate was lower. Meanwhile a comission introduced severe restrictions in the clinics in Vienna to eliminate rough examinations: the number of the medical students was decreased, especially that of the foreign students. It resulted in the decreasing of the mortality rate

! Dr. Breit was not very busy in doing post mortem examinations himself, thus the danger of infection was smaller. Semmelweis was, however, soon reinstated in his post, because Dr. Breit was appointed to the chair of midwifery at the University of Tübingen. Then, after so much trouble and worry, in March 1847 he set out for Venice in order to relax together with his friends, among the historical monuments of the town. After his return to Vienna, he started work with renewed energy. The puerperal mortality rate increased rapidly, in April 1847 it was again as high as 18%. To-day it is known that it was partly Semmelweis himself who - in a most fatal