Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis

Abstract

There is a mission hospital in Africa named "Ile Abiye," which means "A House Where Babies Are Born Alive." The name reflects the gratitude of a people who saw the wonder of modern medical aseptic techniques and antibiotics bring life to an area where mothers gave birth to children under high-risk conditions. The Carters introduce<i>Childbed Fever</i>, their study of Dr Semmelweis and his times, by quoting from a senior physician of the 19th century who referred to "maternity clinics—birth houses, as they were called—[as] really houses of death." He stated that "the morgue is always full of corpses from the maternity wards, like fish on a slab." This delightful, clearly written little book is not so much the biography of a man as the biography of a disease: puerperal fever. Before the book is over we realize that the disease is but one manifestation of the ubiquitous streptococcus. The