Description
Surgeon, scholar, best-selling author, Sherwin B. Nuland tells the strange story of Ignac Semmelweis with urgency and the insight gained from his own studies and clinical experience. Ignac Semmelweis is remembered for the now-commonplace notion that doctors must wash their hands before examining patients. In mid-nineteenth-century Vienna, however, this was a subversive idea. With deaths from childbed fever exploding, Semmelweis discovered that doctors themselves were spreading the disease. While his simple reforms worked immediately-childbed fever in Vienna all but disappeared-they brought down upon Semmelweis the wrath of the establishment, and led to his tragic end.
About the Author
Sherwin B. Nuland (1930-2014) was the National Book Award-winning author of How We Die and clinical professor of surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Reviews
"Nuland has managed to rediscover a critical moment in the history of medicine, the anxieties of which...persist today." -- New York Times Book Review
Book Information
ISBN 9780393326253
Author Sherwin B. Nuland
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 191g
Dimensions(mm) 203mm * 140mm * 18mm
