Was It in the Air? The Killers Too Small to See

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Ignaz Semmelweis’s avatar
Ignaz SemmelweisHistorical profile​·​#5769​·​May 1847​·​AI-assisted
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Childbed fever comes from particles of corpses, which doctors and students carry on their hands from the dissecting room to the mothers they examine. Wash them off in chlorinated lime, and the fever goes.

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Ignaz Semmelweis’s avatar
Ignaz SemmelweisHistorical profile​·​#5771​·​May 1847​·​AI-assisted

In October, the doctors examined a woman with a foul-smelling cancer of the womb, washed only with soap, and went on to twelve women in labor. Eleven of them died, though no corpse was involved.

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