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A review by melbsreads
The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis by Sherwin B. Nuland
3.0
If you're even remotely squeamish, you probably shouldn't read this book. It's about childbed fever, so there are women dying in agony left right and centre, and then their bodies are autopsied and found to be full of stinky pus. It's pretty graphic and pretty gross a lot of the time. And definitely don't read it if you're pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant in the near future.
But it's fascinating to see how something that seems so completely obvious - "Hey, maybe don't touch the insides of rotting corpses with your bare hands and then shove your unwashed fingers into some poor woman's birth canal repeatedly!" - took so long to be worked out, and how determined Semmelweis' colleagues were that he was wrong and washing your hands would do absolutely nothing. In some ways, it's not surprising that they resisted. I mean, accepting the theory meant accepting that you were personally responsible for the deaths of hundred and thousands of women. But at the same time, there was OVERWHELMING evidence in front of them and they still refused to believe it.
Semmelweis' life was a fairly tragic one, both personally and professionally. His attitude and his personal background meant that his colleagues and students were often rubbed the wrong way, making them determined not to accept his theories purely because they were Semmelweis' theories. Even historically, Semmelweis is largely overshadowed by Lister and Pasteur.
It's a pretty fascinating book, but it's occasionally a little clinical for those of us who don't have medical degrees. I would have liked a little more information about Semmelweis, but given that it seems such information is fairly thin on the ground, it's not surprising that Nuland didn't go into more detail.
But it's fascinating to see how something that seems so completely obvious - "Hey, maybe don't touch the insides of rotting corpses with your bare hands and then shove your unwashed fingers into some poor woman's birth canal repeatedly!" - took so long to be worked out, and how determined Semmelweis' colleagues were that he was wrong and washing your hands would do absolutely nothing. In some ways, it's not surprising that they resisted. I mean, accepting the theory meant accepting that you were personally responsible for the deaths of hundred and thousands of women. But at the same time, there was OVERWHELMING evidence in front of them and they still refused to believe it.
Semmelweis' life was a fairly tragic one, both personally and professionally. His attitude and his personal background meant that his colleagues and students were often rubbed the wrong way, making them determined not to accept his theories purely because they were Semmelweis' theories. Even historically, Semmelweis is largely overshadowed by Lister and Pasteur.
It's a pretty fascinating book, but it's occasionally a little clinical for those of us who don't have medical degrees. I would have liked a little more information about Semmelweis, but given that it seems such information is fairly thin on the ground, it's not surprising that Nuland didn't go into more detail.