SEMMELWEIS 



91 



to them the fact that their patients died, and his 

 patients lived: and that some sort of direct infection 

 was the cause of the deaths. The tragedy of his 

 life cannot be told too often, and may be told again 

 here. # For want of the final proof that bacteriology, 

 and the inoculation of animals, alone could give, 

 he was unable to hold out against his enemies till 

 Pasteur could rescue him. 



In 1846, when he was twenty-three years old, 

 Ignaz Semmelweis was appointed assistant-professor 

 in the maternity department of the huge general 

 hospital of Vienna. For many years, the mortality 

 in the lying-in wards had been about 1.25 per cent., 

 and no more. Then, under a new professor, it had 

 risen ; and, for some years before Semmelweis came 

 on the scene, it had been 5 per cent., or even 7 per 

 cent. In October 1841, there had been an epidemic 

 that had lasted till May 1843. ^ n these twenty 

 months, out of 5139 women delivered, 829 had died ; 

 that is to say, 16 per cent. 



There were two sets of wards in the maternity 

 department. The one set may be called Clinique 

 A, and the other Clinique B. For many years, the 

 mortality had been the same in each. In 1841 a 

 change was made : Clinique A was assigned to the 

 teaching of students, and Clinique B to the teaching 

 of midwives : and, so soon as this change had been 

 made, the mortality in Clinique B became less, but 



* This account of Semmelweis, reprinted by permission 

 from the Middlesex Hospital Journal, is mostly taken from Dr 

 Theodore Duka's excellent paper on " Childbed Fever," 

 {Lancet, 1886.) 



