SEMMELWEIS, Ignaz (1818-1865)
拍品 39

SEMMELWEIS, Ignaz (1818-1865)

Autograph document signed ('Ig. Philipp Sem[m]elweis') as 'Med. Doctor & Primar-Geburtsarzt zu St. Rochus', a medical certificate concerning a young mother, Pest, Hungary, 24 December 1854.

已结束2021年7月14日

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GBP 35,000

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SEMMELWEIS, Ignaz (1818-1865)
Autograph document signed ('Ig. Philipp Sem[m]elweis') as 'Med. Doctor & Primar-Geburtsarzt zu St. Rochus', a medical certificate concerning a young mother, Pest, Hungary, 24 December 1854.
In German, one page, 375 x 233mm, on grey paper. In a solander case. Provenance: Kiefer Buch- und Kunstauktionen, 14 February 2014, 3331.

The pioneer of antiseptic procedures examines a young mother. A rare autograph document: no other records on ABPC/RBH. Semmelweis certifies his observation that one Anna Petermann, who has been admitted to the St Rochus hospital for childbirth and claims to be 19 years old, has been the subject of two previous obstetric operations, and must in fact be over the age of 30.

Semmelweis had made his great breakthrough seven years previously in Vienna, when he discovered that puerperal fever, a major cause of maternal and neonatal mortality, was the result of infective agents on the hands of medical staff, and could be almost completely eliminated by a strict programme of hand-washing with chlorinated limewater. In spite of its clear experimental success, Semmelweis's hand-washing technique was rejected by the medical establishment, and having lost his position in Vienna he returned to his native Hungary to take the position at the head of the obstetric ward of the small hospital of St Rochus in Pest. Once again he was successful in reducing rates of puerperal fever to less than one per cent, but colleagues continued to resist his methods, and his work was not to gain widespread recognition until several decades after his death in a lunatic asylum at the age of 47. In an article on Semmelweis's collected manuscripts, J. Antall, V. Harko and T. Vida estimate that as few as five original letters by Semmelweis survive, and no more than 20 or 30 documents in total ('Semmelweis Ignac összegyütött keziratai', Orvostörténeti Közlemények 46–47 (1968) 185–267).