Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis (Contributions in Medical Studies) - Hardcover

K. Codell Carter; Barbara R. Carter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0313291462 ISBN 13: 9780313291463

Publisher: Praeger, 1994

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

.,."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.

Synopsis:

This biography of Ignaz Semmelweis describes his introduction of disinfectants to reduce maternal mortality from "childbed" - now called puerperal - fever, in 19th-century Vienna. Semmelweis was committed to an insane asylum where he died at the age of 42.

About this edition

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0313291462
• ISBN 13: 9780313291463
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 159