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SEMMELWEISS, IGNATZ PHILIPP (1818-1865)
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See also:SEMMELWEISS, IGNATZ PHILIPP (1818-1865) , Hungarian physician, was See also:born at Buda on the 1st of See also:July 1818, and was educated at the See also:universities of Pest and See also:Vienna. At first he intended to study See also:law, but soon abandoned it for See also:medicine; and such was his promise that, even as an undergraduate, he attracted the See also:attention of men like See also:Joseph Skoda and Carl See also:Rokitansky. He graduated M.D. at Vienna in 1844, and was then appointed assistant See also:professor in the maternity See also:department, under Johann See also:Klein. In Klein's See also:time the deaths in this department from what was then known as " puerperal See also:fever " became portentous, the ratio being rarely under 5•o3 and some-times exceeding 7.45%. Between See also:October 1841 and May 1843, of 5139 parturient See also:women 829 died; giving the terrible See also:death-See also:rate of 16%, not counting those of patients transferred to other wards. It was observed that this rate of mortality prevailed in the students' clinic; in the midwives' clinic it ruled much See also:lower. Semmelweiss found no satisfactory explanations of this mortality in such causes as overcrowding, fear, mysterious atmospheric influences or even contaminated wards; yet that the cause See also:lay in some See also:local conditions he See also:felt certain. The patients would See also:die in rows, others escaping; and women de-livered before arrival, or prematurely, would See also:escape. At last, he tells us, the death of a colleague from a See also:dissection See also:wound " unveiled to my mind an identity " with the fatal puerperal cases; and the beginning of a scientific See also:pathology of septicaemia was made. The students often came to the lying-in wards from the dissecting-See also:room, their hands cleansed with See also:soap and See also:water only. In May 1847 Semmelweiss prescribed ablutions with chlorinated See also:lime water: in that See also:month the mortality stood at 12.24%; before the end of the See also:year it had fallen to 3'04, and in the second year to 1'27; thus even surpassing the results in the midwives' clinic. Skoda and other eminent physicians were convinced by these results (Zeiischrift d. k. k. Gesellschaft der Arzte in Wien, J. vi. B. i. p. 107). Klein, however, apparently blinded by See also:jealousy and vanity, supported by other reactionary teachers, and aided by the disasters which then befell the Hungarian nation, drove Semmelweiss from Vienna in 1849. Fortunately, in the following year Semmelweiss was appointed obstetric physician at Pest in the maternity department, then as terribly afflicted as Klein's clinic had been; and during his six years' See also:tenure of See also:office he succeeded, by antiseptic methods, in reducing the mortality to o.85%. Semmelweiss was slow and reluctant as an author, or no doubt his opinions would have obtained an earlier See also:vogue; moreover, he was not only See also:tender-hearted, but also irascible, impatient and tactless. Thus it cannot be said that the stupidity or malignity of his opponents was wholly to blame for the tragical issue of the conflict which brought this See also:man of See also:genius within the See also:gates of an See also:asylum on the loth of July 1865. Strangeto say, he brought with him into this See also:retreat a dissection wound of the right See also:hand, and on the 17th of the following See also:August he died, a victim of the very disease for the See also:relief of which he had already sacrificed See also:health and See also:fortune. His See also:chief publication was Die Atiologie der Begriff and die Prophylaxis See also:des Kindbettfiebers (Vienna, 1861). There are See also:biographies by Hegar (See also:Freiburg, 1882), Bruck (Vienna and Tischen, 1887), Duka (See also:Hertford, 1882), See also:Grosse (Vienna, 1898) and See also:Schurer von Waldheim (Vienna, 1905). For the relations in the See also:order of See also:discovery of Semmelweiss to See also:Lister see LISTER. (T. C. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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