Views On Puerperal Fever
Braun was convinced that puerperal fever was caused by miasms and "unfavourable atmospheric-cosmic-terrestrial influences". Braun was consistently hostile to Ignaz Semmelweis; he was not conscientious in using the prophylactic measures necessary to prevent childbed fever, and he did not accept Semmelweis's etiological characterization of the disease.
In a textbook, Braun identified 30 causes of childbed fever; only the 28th of these was cadaverous infection. Other postulated causes included conception and pregnancy, uremia, pressure exerted on adjacent organs by the shrinking uterus, emotional traumas, mistakes in diet, chilling, and atmospheric epidemic influences. Carl Braun's thirty causes appear in his Lehrbuch der Geburtshülfe (Vienna: Braumüller, 1857), p. 914. In the first of these, published in 1855, he mentions Semmelweis in connection with his discussion of cause number 28, cadaverous poisoning. In the later version, however, although he discusses the same cause in the same terms, all references to Semmelweis have been dropped. The impact of Braun's views are clearly visible in the rising mortality rates in the 1850s.
One of Braun's students, August Theodor Stamm, presented papers arguing that improved ventilation, rather than the use of chlorine washings, was responsible for the reduced incidence of puerperal fever at the maternity clinic. Braun himself published papers showing that proper ventilation was the most efficient preventive measure against puerperal fever, e.g. and Braun successfully persuaded the authorities in Vienna to install an expensive new ventilation system in the maternity clinic.
Read more about this topic: Carl Braun (obstetrician)
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