Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis

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Description

In the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of women died each year from childbed fever. The Carters describe birthing conditions and medical practices in Vienna during the time when young Semmelweis began to work in a maternity clinic there. He discovered that childbed fever arose because medical personnel did not wash adequately after dissecting corpses before doing vaginal examinations of women in labor. After he required students to disinfect themselves, the mortality rate immediately dropped. However, Semmelweis's views were not accepted by the senior physicians who believed the disease was due to a variety of causes. After strident attempts to persuade skeptics, Semmelweis was committed to a Viennese insane asylum where he died at age 42, possibly from beatings by asylum guards. Childbed fever, now called puerperal infection, continues to be a leading cause of maternal mortality, in spite of the best efforts of modern physicians.

Reviews

.,."there is much that is new and stimulating in this short biography of one of the most complex and puzzling of all the famous doctors of the nineteenth century. It is well worth reading, for Semmelweis is a much more interesting study than the cardboard saint of the standard biographies."-Bull. Hist. Med.
...there is much that is new and stimulating in this short biography of one of the most complex and puzzling of all the famous doctors of the nineteenth century. It is well worth reading, for Semmelweis is a much more interesting study than the cardboard saint of the standard biographies.-Bull. Hist. Med.
This delightful, clearly written little book is not so much the biography of a man as the biography of a disease: puerperal fever. I enjoyed reviewing this small book and would recommend it heartily--particularly to health care workers in obstetrics.-JAMA
"This delightful, clearly written little book is not so much the biography of a man as the biography of a disease: puerperal fever. I enjoyed reviewing this small book and would recommend it heartily--particularly to health care workers in obstetrics."-JAMA
..."there is much that is new and stimulating in this short biography of one of the most complex and puzzling of all the famous doctors of the nineteenth century. It is well worth reading, for Semmelweis is a much more interesting study than the cardboard saint of the standard biographies."-Bull. Hist. Med.

Author Bio

K. CODELL CARTER teaches at Brigham Young University./e He has edited Semmelweis's writings and published on other historical figures in the history of medicine. BARBARA R. CARTER has taught at Cornell University and Brigham Young University.