Childbed fever
hospital infection
seventeenth century that it assumed epidemic proportions and became a critical problem for medical profession. In Europe the increased incidence of the disease coincided with the spread of large hospitals, particularly the charitable maternity hospitals. The conditions in these institutions were extremely poor. Women in labor frequently delivered on dirty sheets, caked with dried blood and uterine discharge. Those for whom there were no beds because of overcrowding lay on mats of straw or on wooden benches. In view of the excessively high mortality rate, the public soon came to fear the hospital and to regard it in terror as a death trap. Prior to Semmelweis's investigation a few medical men had suggested a relationship between the incidence of child bed fever and the unsanitary conditions of hospital work. In Dublin, in the early part of the nineteeth century, Robert Collings successfully controlled childbed fever by fumigating and disinfecting the hospital rooms. In America in 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes clearly anticipated Semmelweis's discovery by expressing the belief that childbed fever could be brought to the patient by doctors and nurses themselves. The medical profession was not ready to consider this possibility and many physicians vigorously condemn Holmes's suggestion. Semmelweis apparently un
TO BE CONTINUED
SEMMELWEIS'S INVESTIGATION OF CHILDBED FEVER
TRANDEL'S CHOICE MOST VISITED MOST DOWNLOADED
Ethnocentrism Birds' Paradise Mediterrenean Cook book
Ignaz Semmelweis's work began in 1846 when he was appointed to the staff of the maternity hospital in Vienna. The hospital at that time was divide into two clinics: the first maternity division and the second maternity division. In the first division medical students were given instructions in obstetrics. In the second division midwives were tought. To his distress, Semmelweis found a large proportion of women who came to the hospital for the delivery of their babies died of a disease known as childbed fever
(called technically as puerperal fever) What puzzled him most however, was the difference in mortality rate between the two divisions. From three to four times as many women in the first division contracted and died of this serious disease as in the second division. It was this disturbing fact and his curiosity to understand it that led him to his investigation into the cause of the disease. To the physicians of ancient times childbed fever was known as an occasionally occurring disease. It was not until the
| seventeenth century that it assumed epidemic proportions and became a critical problem for medical profession. In Europe the increased incidence of the disease coincided with the spread of large hospitals, particularly the charitable maternity hospitals. The conditions in these institutions were extremely poor. Women in labor frequently delivered on dirty sheets, caked with dried blood and uterine discharge. Those for whom there were no beds because of overcrowding lay on mats of straw or on wooden benches. In view of the excessively high mortality rate, the public soon came to fear the hospital and to regard it in terror as a death trap. Prior to Semmelweis's investigation a few medical men had suggested a relationship between the incidence of child bed fever and the unsanitary conditions of hospital work. In Dublin, in the early part of the nineteeth century, Robert Collings successfully controlled childbed fever by fumigating and disinfecting the hospital rooms. In America in 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes clearly anticipated Semmelweis's discovery by expressing the belief that childbed fever could be brought to the patient by doctors and nurses themselves. The medical profession was not ready to consider this possibility and many physicians vigorously condemn Holmes's suggestion. Semmelweis apparently un TO BE CONTINUED |
| SEMMELWEIS'S INVESTIGATION OF CHILDBED FEVER |
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| TRANDEL'S CHOICE MOST VISITED MOST DOWNLOADED Ethnocentrism Birds' Paradise Mediterrenean Cook book |
| Ignaz Semmelweis's work began in 1846 when he was appointed to the staff of the maternity hospital in Vienna. The hospital at that time was divide into two clinics: the first maternity division and the second maternity division. In the first division medical students were given instructions in obstetrics. In the second division midwives were tought. To his distress, Semmelweis found a large proportion of women who came to the hospital for the delivery of their babies died of a disease known as childbed fever |
| (called technically as puerperal fever) What puzzled him most however, was the difference in mortality rate between the two divisions. From three to four times as many women in the first division contracted and died of this serious disease as in the second division. It was this disturbing fact and his curiosity to understand it that led him to his investigation into the cause of the disease. To the physicians of ancient times childbed fever was known as an occasionally occurring disease. It was not until the |
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