Childbed fever

I. P. Semmelweis, The Etiology, Conception and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, Harfleben. Pest, Vienna Leipsig, 1861. 

As soon as in 1785, a solution of chlorine gas in water was used to bleach textiles. Potassium hypochlorite (Eau de Javel) was prepared by Berthollet in 1789. In 1820, Antoine G. Labarraque replaced potash liquor by the cheaper caustic soda liquor and thus was bom sodium hypochlorite. At the end of the 1820s, Robert Collins, then Oliver Wendell Holmes showed that puerperal (childbed) fever frequency decreased when midwives wash their hands... 

Doctors in Europe in 1936 had excellent results using the new dmg to treat childbed fever and meningitis. Tests in the USA in 1936, initially at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh, showed that it was also effective against various streptococci infections and pneumonia. Prontosil won wide publicity in the USA in 1936 when it was used to treat President Franklin D. Roosevelt s son, Franklin, Jr., who was severely ill from a streptococcal infection. 

Ignaz Semmelweis, discoverer of the nature of childbed fever, dies in a private insane asylum. ... 

IP Semmelweis. The etiology, concept, prevention of childbed fever. Am J Obstet Gynecol 172(1 pt l) 236-237, 1995. 

In the convergence of ideas that resulted in the development of aseptic surgery, Semmelweis (1846) was inspired to show that the transmission of childbed fever could be stopped with handwashing. This breakthrough was made prior to Pasteur s identification, in 1861, of the role of bacteria in infection. We do not know if Lister (1865) communicated with Pasteur to learn of his... 

Semmelweis Demonstrated that childbed fever (occuring in maternity wards in Vienna) was... 

Known also as childbed fever or puerperal sepsis. 

Loudon, Irvine. The Tragedy of Childbed Fever. New York Oxford University Press, 2000. 

Puerperal Fever Disease caused by P-hemolytic streptococci, which are normal vaginal and respiratory microbiota that can be introduced during child delivery by medical personnel. Known also as Childbed Fever or Puerperal Sepsis. 

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