Carter Barbara R. - Childbed fever: a scientific biography of Ignaz Semmelweis, with a new introduction by the authors

With a new introduction by the authors

K. Codell Carter Barbara R. Carter

Childbed Fever

A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis

Transaction Publishers

New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)

Third printing 2009

New material this edition copyright @ 2005 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Originally published in 1994 by Greenwood Press.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers, Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042. www.transactionpub.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2004056156

ISBN: 978-1-4128-0467-7

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carter, K. Codell (Kay Codell), 1939

Childbed fever: a scientific biography of Ignaz Semmelweis / K. Codell

Carter and Barbara R. Carter.

p. cm.

Previously published in 1994 by Greenwood Press.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-4128-0467-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Semmelweis, Ignac Felep, 1818-1865. 2. ObstetriciansHungaryBiography. 3. Puerperal septicemiaHistory. 1. Carter, Barbara R. II. Title.

RG510.S4C37 2004

618.2'0092dc22

[B]

2004056156

Copyright Acknowledgments

Excerpts from The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, ed. and trans. by K. Codell Carter (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press; 1983 by the Board of Regents of The University of Wisconsin System).

Excerpts from K. Codell Carter, Ignaz Semmelweis, Carl Mayrhofer, and the Rise of Germ Theory, Medical History 29 (1985): 33-53; and K. Codell Carter, Semmelweis and His Predecessors, Medical History 25 (1981): 57-72. Copyright the Trustees of the Wellcome Trust, and reproduced with their permission.

Transaction Introduction

We know of no story more engaging and moving than the life and work of Ignaz Semmelweis. In writing this book, our goal was to make the Semmelweis story available to a general audience; unfortunately the book appeared only in an expensive library edition. During the decade since its first publication, hoping to bring the story to more readers, we considered publishing the book, privately, in an inexpensive paperback format. Now, because Transaction Publishers has kindly invited us to reissue the book, we have new hope that our goal may yet be attained.

Parts of Semmelweis's story have been told before. His work is the subject of more than the usual number of scholarly books and articles. Morton Thompson's 1949 fictionalized account of his life and work, The Cry and the Covenant, sold over a million copies. Sherwin B. Nuland's The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignc Semmelweis appeared in 2003. However, few authors have made the necessary effort to understand (much less to explain) the system of ideas to which Semmelweis was drawn. As a result, while the pathos of Semmelweis's life comes through in virtually every account, almost no one, not even Nuland, grasps Semmelweis's significance in the history of medicine. We find our book to be better written and more engaging than any of the other accounts, but an even more important virtue is that it alone makes clear exactly why Semmelweis was so important. His contribution was different from and more profound than one would infer from any other published account of his life and work.

Semmelweis's claims were starkly inconsistent with medical theories current in the 1850s; understandably, this made his claims difficult to accept. However, by forcing physicians to abandon their cherished theories, his work led to the adoption of an entirely new way of thinking about disease. Thus, he did not simply contribute a beneficial new practice (disinfectant washings); rather he helped create an entirely new theory of disease. This new theory, sometimes referred to as the etiological standpoint, still dominates medicine today. Failure to grasp the relation between Semmelweis's work and the rise of the etiological standpoint is the main defect in the standard accounts of Semmelweis's life and work.

We are delighted to have yet another opportunity to make this clear.

Finally, we would like to comment on the title of this book. The title we originally chose was Houses of Death: An Account of Childbed Fever and of the Work of Ignaz Semmelweis. This title was suggested by a story that is narrated in the first paragraph of the Preface (to which the reader is invited to turn). However, the initial publisher found the title too dramatic, and Transaction Publishers has elected to retain the title under which the book was originally published. As authors, we still judge our originally intended title to best reflect the content and the tone of the book.