Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T23:38:28.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”: Ignaz Semmelweis and the Story of Puerperal Fever

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2016

Joshua Manor ,
Nava Blum  and
Yoav Lurie
Joshua Manor*
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology, Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel
Nava Blum
Affiliation:
Department of Health Systems Administration, Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Israel
Yoav Lurie
Affiliation:
Liver Unit, Inst. Dig. Dis., Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel
*
Address correspondence to Joshua Manor, MD, PhD, Department of Pathology, Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, POB 3235, Jerusalem 91301, Israel ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis was born almost 200 years ago, in 1818, to a well-to-do middle class Hungarian family. He started law school in 1837, switched to medicine a year later, and graduated in 1844.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 37 , Issue 8 , August 2016 , pp. 881 - 887
Copyright
© 2016 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Bauer, J. The tragic fate of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. Calif Med 1963;98:264–266.Google Scholar
2. Semmelweis, IP. Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.Google Scholar
3. Nuland, SB. The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.Google Scholar
4. DeLacy, M. Puerperal fever in eighteenth-century Britain. Bull Hist Med 1989;63:521–556.Google Scholar
5. Thompson, M. The Cry and the Covenant. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer, 1991.Google Scholar
6. Slaughter, F. Immortal Magyar: Semmelweis, Conqueror of Childbed Fever. New York: Henry Schuman, 1950.Google Scholar
7. Dunn, PM. Ignac Semmelweis (1818-1865) of Budapest and the prevention of puerperal fever. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2005;90:F345–F348.Google Scholar
8. Ataman, AD, Vatanoğlu-Lutz, EE, Yıldırım, G. Medicine in stamps-Ignaz Semmelweis and puerperal fever. J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc 2013;14:35–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9. Semmelweis, IP. Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers. Pest: C. H. Hartleben’s, 1861.Google Scholar
10. Nuland, SB. The enigma of Semmelweis—an interpretation. J Hist Med Allied Sci 1979;34:255–272.Google Scholar
11. Dunn, PM. Dr John Burton (1710-1771) of York and his obstetric treatise. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2001;84:F216–F217.Google Scholar
12. Eysenck, HJ. Genius: The Natural History of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
13. Pickstone, JV. Medicine and Industrial Society: A History of Hospital Development in Manchester and Its Region, 1752–1946. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
14. Dunn, PM. Dr William Hunter (1718-83) and the gravid uterus. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 1999;80:F76–F77.Google Scholar
15. Teijlingen, Ev, Lowis, G, McCaffery, P, Porter, M. Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives. New York: Nova, 2004.Google Scholar
16. Dukes, CE. London medical societies in the eighteenth century. Proc R Soc Med 1960;53:699–706.Google ScholarPubMed
17. City of London Maternity Hospital. British Medical Journal 1950;1:725–727.Google Scholar
18. White, C. A Treatise on the Management of Pregnant and Lying In Women. Manchester: Watson, 1772.Google Scholar
19. Home, F. Clinical Experiments, Histories, and Dissections. Edinburgh: J. Murray, 1780.Google Scholar
20. The Edinburgh practice of physic, surgery, and midwifery : preceded by an abstract of the theory of medicine, and the nosology of Dr. Cullen and including upwards of six hundred authentic formulae from the books of St. Bartholmews, St. George’s St. Thomas’s, Guy’s, and other hospitals in London, and from the lectures and writings of the most eminent public teachers ; with twenty quarto plates. London: G. Kearsley; 1803.Google Scholar
21. Collins , R. A practical treatise on midwifery, containing the result of sixteen thousand six hundred and fifty-four births, occurring in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during a period of seven years, commencing November 1826. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Browne, Green and Longman, 1835.Google Scholar
22. Dunn, PM. Dr. Robert Collins (1801-1868) and his Rotunda obstetric report. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 1994;71:F67–F68.Google Scholar
23. Ellis, H. Surgical anniversaries: James Blundell, pioneer of blood transfusion. Brit J Hosp Med 2007;68:1.Google Scholar
24. Blundell, J. The principles and practice of obstetricy, as at present taught [To which are added, notes and illustrations. By Thomas Castle]. Washington, DC: Duff Green, 1834.Google Scholar
25. Dunn, PM. Dr Edward Rigby, junior, of London (1804-1860) and his system of midwifery. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2001;84:F216–F217.Google Scholar
26. Gordon, A. A treatise on the epidemic puerperal fever of Aberdeen. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1795.Google Scholar
27. Cullingworth, CJ. Oliver Wendell Holmes and the contagiousness of puerperal fever. Br Med J 1905;2:1161–1167.Google Scholar
28. Scott, CJ. Alexander Gordon and puerperal fever. Hektoen Int 2015.Google Scholar
29. Lowis, GW. Epidemiology of puerperal fever: the contributions of Alexander Gordon. Med Hist 1993;37:11.Google Scholar
30. Lane, HJ, Blum, N, Fee, E. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) and Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865): preventing the transmission of puerperal fever. Am J Public Health 2010;100:2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31. Holmes, OW. Puerperal fever, as a private pestilence. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1855.Google Scholar
32. Bryan, CS. “The greatest Brahmin among them”: William Osler’s (1849-1919) perspective on Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94). J Med Biogr 2010;18:4.Google Scholar
33. Meigs, R. Meigs family history and genealogy. Meigs family website. http://meigs.org/index.html. Accessed April 17, 2016.Google Scholar
34. Channing, W. A treatise on etherization in childbirth: illustrated by five hundred and eighty-one cases. Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1848.Google Scholar
35. Meigs, CD. On the nature, signs, and treatment of childbed fevers; in a series of letters addressed to the students of his class. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1854.Google Scholar
36. Hodge, HL. On the Non-contagious Character of Puerperal Fever: An Introductory Lecture. Philadelphia: T.K. and P.G. Collins, printers, 1852.Google Scholar
37. Hulme, N. Treatise on the Puerperal Fever. 1772.Google Scholar
38. Dewees, WP. A treatise on the diseases of females, 7th ed. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840.Google Scholar
39. Lind, J. A Treatise of the Scurvy in Three Parts. Containing an inquiry into the Nature, Causes and Cure of that Disease, together with a Critical and Chronological View of what has been published on the subject. Edinburgh: A. Miller. Printed by Sands, Murray, and Cochran, 1753.Google Scholar
40. Louis, PCA. An essay on clinical instruction. London: S. Highley, 1834.Google Scholar
41. Simmons, JG. Doctors and Discoveries: Lives That Created Today’s Medicine. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.Google Scholar
42. Codell Carter, K, Carter, BR. Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis, Rev. ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2005.Google Scholar
43. Leary, TF. The Game of Life. Culver City, CA: Peace, 1979.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Manor supplementary material

Table S1

Download Manor supplementary material(File)
File 19.5 KB