Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis

by K. Codell Carter, Barbara R. Carter

The life and work of Ignaz Semmelweis is among the most engaging and moving stories in the history of science. Childbed Fever makes the Semmelweis story available to a general audience, while placing his life, and his discovery, in the context of his times. In 1846 Vienna, as what would now be called a head resident of obstetrics, Semmelweis confronted the terrible reality of childbed fever, which killed prodigious numbers of women throughout Europe and America. In May 1847 Semmelweis was struck by the realization that, in his clinic, these women had probably been infected by the decaying remains of human tissue. He believed that infection occurred because medical personnel did not wash their hands thoroughly after conducting autopsies in the morgue. He immediately began requiring everyone working in his clinic to wash their hands in a chlorine solution. The mortality rate fell to about one percent. While everyone at the time rejected his account of the cause of the disease because his theory was fundamentally inconsistent with existing medical beliefs about how diseases were transmitted, in time Semmelweis was proven to be correct. His work led to the adoption of a new way of thinking about disease, thus helping to create an entirely new theory - the etiological standpoint - that still dominates medicine today.

Genres: Medicine

142 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 1994

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, cogent, well written. A story of medical insight and medical stupidity that's worth knowing.

[Gabriel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful addition to what Charlie Munger calls a collection of inanities... This is a total Lollapalooza of when a very simple explanation and solution is found to an endemic problem, and countless human biases, misjudgements, conflicts of interests, and mistakes combine to hinder scientific progress and delay medical practices that could have saved thousands of lives...


Essentially, Mr. Semmelweis figured out that if doctors washed their hands in lime-water, maternity wards would suffer fewer cases of childbed fever. By making people wash their hands, mortality rates immediately dropped 80%+. When people stopped washing their hands, mortality rates went back up 5 fold, but because of simple human errors and tendencies which we are all prone to, and which are a part of each of us, Ignaz Semmelweis was ignored, committed to an insane asylum, and beaten to death! These are "hotshot, high-powered people" as Charlie would call the people responsible for this, and they make these terrible mistakes! We are all subject to the same misjudgement and must teach ourselves to recognize these terrible errors we commit and train ourselves out of them as best we can.

Humanity is such that an easily testable concept such as washing your hands, whose results can be easily measured, when placed against the misjudgement of man stands no chance in the short-run... Human misjudgement rules the short-term.

This is an absolutely wonderful true story.

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, very well written and incredibly intriguing. The history of Childbed Fever and Ignaz Semmelweis is a history that all people should know.