Before anyone knew germs existed, one obstetrician figured out that doctors were unknowingly carrying death from the autopsy ...

In 1847, one out of every six women who delivered a baby in the First Division at the Allgemeine Krankenhaus hospital in Vienna died of childbed fever, a situation mirrored at other medical facilities ...

Over the weekend, an image of a mustachioed man with beady eyes and a bald head and wearing an old-timey suit appeared on the homepage of Google pleading with us to wash our hands. It was a doodle of ...

Of puerperal (childbed) fever caused by Streptococcus haemolyticus more than 3,000 U. S. women die every year. Although sulfanilamide has miraculously cured thousands of puerperal infections, ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover the history of science and exploration. As most of us discover a new obsession with washing our hands (and some people ...

Based on: Immortal Magyar: Semmelweis, Conqueror of Childbed Fever. By Frank G. Slaughter, M.D. 8°, cloth, 211 pp., with 4 illustrations and frontispiece. New York ...

Born in 1818, Semmelweis eventually went on to obtain a master’s degree in midwifery from the University of Vienna, and spent his initial tenure at the Vienna General Hospital in the mid 19th century, ...

Scientists discovered a previously unknown trigger that turns run-of-the-mill strep infections into the flesh-eating disease childbed fever, which strikes postpartum moms and newborns, often leaving ...