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Article: The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- January 3, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SHERWIN B. NULAND
Today, even young children know to wash their hands before they eat or after they go to the bathroom. In mid-19th-century Vienna, however, the idea of washing one's hands to stop the spread of disease was subversive. At that time, one of every six mothers in Europe died of abdominal infection within a few days of giving birth. Doctors had many suspicions about the cause of the disease they called childbed fever. Perhaps the pressure of the uterus on the intestines caused stasis of fecal material that was then absorbed into the veins. It never occurred to anyone that doctors spread the disease by ...
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... ... Within," "Lost in America: A Journey with My Father," and "The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis." His book "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter," won the National Book ...
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