Ignaz Semmelweis: a victim of harassment?

Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift
Sonja Schreiner

Abstract

Ignaz Semmelweis' (1818-1865) discovery of the endemic causes of febris puerperalis is a striking example of the role of pathology in medicine. Transdisciplinarity encounters Semmelweis' biography, which is neither linear nor totally focused on medicine. He completed the philosophicum (artisterium), studying the septem artes liberales (1835-1837) in Pest, comprising humanities and natural science. After moving to Vienna, he began to study law, but turned to medicine as early as 1838. In 1844, he graduated with a botanical doctoral thesis composed in Neo-Latin, showing linguistic and stylistic talent and a broad knowledge of gynecology and obstetrics. The style and topoi demonstrate the interchangeability of what he learnt during his propaedeuticum. Nowadays, hardly anyone is familiar with this booklet, for two main reasons: the language choice and the life-saving impact of the physician's opus magnum on the reasons for puerperal fever (Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers). In later life, he became convinced that he had no talent as a (scientific) author-a fatal error that led him to become a victim of what we now call "publish or perish." Semmelweis had felt rejected for years. This negative feel...Continue Reading

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