Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1851

IGNAC FUELOEP SEMMELWEIS (1818-1865) Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers. C. A. Hartleben's Verlags-Expedition 1861 vi, 543 [1] pp. 22.2 cm.

Medicine has witnessed few dramas as compelling as the heroic, yet tragic, career of Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis, which stands as a monument to moral and scientific courage. As obstetrician at the Vienna Krankenhaus, Semmelweis noted the high rate of deadly puerperal fever among obstetrical patients and in particular those attended by medical students who moved freely from the dissecting morgue to the wards. After instituting a strict handwashing policy, Semmelweis saw a dramatic drop in the incidence of the disease which prompted him to notify the Vienna Medical Society of his findings. In spite of his having marshaled overwhelming evidence to support his contention that the disease could be spread by attending physicians, his ideas were vehemently opposed by nearly every prominent physician of his day. A notable exception was Oliver Wendell Holmes (see No. 1744) who had earlier published a paper on the contagiousness of puerperal fever. By the time that Semmelweis' ideas finally gained acceptance it was twenty years after his definitive analysis of 1861 and he was dead, having succumbed to septicemia while a patient in a lunatic asylum.

See Related Record(s): 1744

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 6277; Waller 8830

Gift of John Martin, M.D.