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

The Life of Ignác Semmelweis (1818-1865)

way - caused the death of her labouring patients when hurrying to them right after the most mortem examinations. While he was staying abroad, his friend Kolletschka, professor of forensic medicine died. During an autopsy his finger had been cut by a medical student's knife. Semmelweis learned it after his return and studied the record made of Kolletschka's post mortem. He was deeply shocked because he realized that the findings were identical with the symptoms of those who died in puerperal fever: pyaemia. "Day and night I was agitated by the report of Kolletschka's death and there was forced upon my mind with irresistible clarity the identity of this disease from which Kolletschka had died, with that from which I had seen so many hundreds die in childbed." Some foreign authors, among others Podach, who died some years ago, think that the role of Kolletschka's death in Semmelweis's discovery is too romantic. Since Semmelweis refers to it several times himself when reporting on his discovery, it should be accepted, because it is easier to beleive the truth of his own words than the "critical" observations of his late biographers. Nobody questions the significance of the Vienna School in Semmelweis's discovery, the fact that it had provided him with his scientific background and a searching and examining spirit. It does not contradict the fact that the last association, the genious glimmer of knowledge was due to the conclusions of Kolletschka's death. Semmelweis discovered that the causes were in both cases one and the same

: "the cadaveric particles were introduced into the blood-vascular system." And they were introduced by the examining physicians and medical students themselves who did post mortem examinations and were constantly dealing with cadavers. The cadaverous matter could not be removed from the doctors' hands merely by washing them with soap and water - as the peculiar smell which was retained also revealed it. Midwife students wer not engaged in autopsies, this explains the difference in the mortality rate between the two clinics. A disinfectant was needed which could remove the "cadaverous poison". After experimenting with different chemicals, he chose chlorinated lime. From May 1847 onwards he introduced the use of chlorinated lime handwash. He made it compulsory for all physicians, medical students and the nursing staff. This new measure produced amazing results

: the mortality rate was greatly reduced, in June being 2,38%, in July 1,20%, in August 1,89 per cent. "In October 1847 a patient was admitted in the first Clinic suffering from purulent uterine cancer." Eleven out of the twelve women who shared her sick-ward died. Semmelweis realized that not only cadaverous particles could produce puerperal fever but "any pudric organic material" of the living organism. Consequently, he made handwash compulsory also between each examinations. Next month another patient, suffering from carious knee-joint, was responsible for the infection of her fellow-patients. It became clear now that the infectious agent could be transferred to the patients not only by the putrid particle