The doctors' plague : germs, childbed fever, and the strange story of Ignac Semmelweis

This was a short but gripping book - meticulously researched - describing the life of the Hungarian doctor who discovered that doctors, students, and midwives who washed their hands in a disinfectant wash had much, much lower rates of "childbed fever" (puerperal fever) among their patients - like1 in 100 instead of 1 in 6!).

Nuland combines a strong understanding of the history of medicine and academia, how doctors interact professionally, and more than a bit of detective work. Several passages are horribly graphic, giving you just an inkling of what 19th c. hospitals were like and what puerperal fever did to a person.

Turns out many of the doctors and students sticking their hands into women in labor had just come from dissecting pus-ridden corpses. If that wasn't bad enough, unwashed sheets helped transfer infection.

Unfortunately, Semmelweis was such a difficult person and alienated so many people that he was unable to change routine practices in these hospitals. It wasn't until a couple of decades later that Pasteur & Lister showed the world germs in pus from corpses, and infection began to be understood.

Semmelweis suffered various professional and personal setbacks, and may have developed early-onset Alzheimer's. At any rate, he was admitted to a mental hospital in his early 50's, where he appears to have died as result of being beaten by the attendants

The true story of the "birth" of hygiene concerns in medicine is a crucial tale, but a difficult one to read. This book is graphic and melodramatic, and heart-rending both for its descriptions of victims of infection, and the obsession that affected Semmelweis, the ostensible hero. You'll be amazed at what you learn, but your stomach may turn over learning it.