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Childbed Fever A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis
By K. Codell Carter and Barbara R. Carter
ISBN: 0-313-29146-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-29146-3
144 pages
Greenwood Press
Publication: 5/30/1994
List Price: $75.00 (UK Sterling Price: £41.95)
Availability:
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions in Medical Studies
Series Number: 39
Reviews:
  • 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.
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.
Table of Contents:
  • Vienna's General Hospital
  • Childbed Fever
  • Semmelweis's Discovery
  • Resorption Fever
  • Mayrhofer's Discovery
  • Puerperal Infection
  • Postscript
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 93-32618
LCC Class: RG510
Dewey Class: 618.7
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