Eduard Lumpe
was an obstetrician working in Vienna General Hospital

Vienna General Hospital

The Vienna General Hospital is the University medical center of the city of Vienna, Austria. The AKH is the largest hospital of Austria and Europe, the second largest hospital in the world, and at 85-m high is one of the tallest hospital buildings in the world...

 as assistant to professor Johann Klein

Johann Klein

Johann Klein was Professor of Obstetrics at the University of Salzburg and at the University of Vienna. Johann Baptist Chiari was his son-in-law. In Vienna, he was succeeded by professor Carl Braun in 1856....

. He is mainly known for compiling a list of causes for childbed fever in 1845, reflecting the (in retrospect: limited) insights at the time. The disease was predominantly epidemic, i.e. due to miasmatic influences. Other causal factors included: general deprivation, worry, shame, attempted abortion, fear of death, dietary disorders, exposure to cold, local miasmas and difficult delivery. Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics...

 ridiculed Lumpe's work.

Lumpe's work reflected mainstream views, see for instance the work of Charles Delucena Meigs

Charles Delucena Meigs

Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs was an influential American obstetrician of the nineteenth century who is remembered for his opposition to obstetrical anesthesia and to the idea that physicians' hands could transmit disease to their patients.-Biography:Meigs was born February 19, 1792, in St...

for a similar American account in 1854.