94 INFLAMMATION, SUPPURATION, ETC. 



matter ; but it was opposed by the professor in 

 charge of Clinique A, and nothing came of it. In 

 May 1850, Semmelweis opened a great debate on 

 puerperal fever, which occupied three sittings of the 

 Vienna Medical Society. His opponents were 

 there in full force, all the Scribes and Pharisees 

 of the profession. They brought about a vague 

 distrust of his figures and his facts ; they got people 

 to believe that there must be " something else" in 

 puerperal fever, as well as the local infection. 

 Semmelweis began to be discouraged. The 

 University authorities made a dead set against him 

 — they refused to renew his appointment, they got 

 him out of the hospital, and out of Vienna. He 

 went to Pesth, and was Professor of Midwifery 

 there ; but the same opposition and hostility were 

 at Pesth as at Vienna. Slowly he began to lose 

 his hold over himself, went down hill, became excit- 

 able and odd. The end came in July 1865. At a 

 meeting of University professors, he suddenly took 

 a paper from his pocket and read aloud to them a 

 solemn oath, to be enforced on every midwife and 

 every doctor. His mind had given way : he was 

 moved to an asylum at Vienna, and died there a 

 few weeks later. He was only forty- two when he 

 died — What a wounded name, Things standing thus 

 unknown, shall live behind me. 



The contrast between the work of Semmelweis 

 and the work of Pasteur cuts like a knife here. 

 The failure of Semmelweis' teaching may be 

 estimated by the fact that it had all to be done 

 over again. The year of his success at Vienna was 



