SEMMELWEIS, the Women's Doctor

SEMMELWEIS, the Women's Doctor by best-selling author Anthony Valerio recounts the Life and Work of pioneering physician Ignaz P. Semmelweis (1818-1865) who discovered the causes and means of prevention of the pandemic of his day, childbed fever. Called the "Father of Antisepsis--he coined today's WASH YOUR HANDS--Semmelweis was largely ignored, placed in an asylum and murdered. This book details his life from his beginnings in a small town in Budapest, Hungary through the early years of his medical career in Vienna and the agonizing the process by which he discovered the causes & means of childbed fever, through his attempt at a conventional life, his illness and last tragic days.

"To be sure, Semmelweis was a pioneering physician and scientist whose accomplishments should be studied for their contributions to science. But he was also a feminist, and his work should be understood in that vein, also."--Ellen Nerenberg, Hollis Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan University "

"Readers feel like they are with Semmelweis in the hospital wards where women are dying mysteriously of puerperal fever. We feel with him as he hunts down the cause of the disease with observation and deductive reasoning. We share the exhilarating joy of discovering the cause and then, once the establishment resists the findings, and rejects the easy prevention of the disease, Semmelweis's initial outrage and anger"-- ---Eric Goldman, professor.

"Read this book, men and women alike. It is one of Valerio's best."--Rebecca West, emeritus, University of Chicago

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