Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, a bacterial infection which we now\nknow to be caused primarily by a streptococcus, was killing women in childbirth at an\nalarming rate. The disease, called puerperal, or childbed, fever, was being transmitted\nprimarily from doctor to patient by a doctor’s unwashed hands and filthy, contaminated\nclothing and linens. Despite this evident and, in retrospect, obvious vector, the doctors of\nthis period never discovered how to prevent their patients from dying a gruesome and\npainful death. Many physicians wrote extensive accounts of the illness but often ended\ntheir works in despair, unable to find the cause. Much of the historical literature blames\nthis befuddlement on personality traits of the physicians, arguing that egos and\nprofessional hostilities prevented the kind of cooperation that could have led to progress.\nThis study attempts to show that this failure was not a product of personalities but\nof the modern physicians’ assumptions and logic. The assumptions were the stillpowerful,\nbut often unnoticed, dictates about the human body handed down from ancient\nGreek medicine. The logical errors were a product of pre-scientific notions of definition,\nexplanation, and evidence. The author argues that it was not a lack of data that thwarted\nthe physicians, but a series of these intellectual roadblocks that prevented them from\nunderstanding and extended the terror of puerperal fever for another two centuries.
Author: Jessica Wells
Institution: University of South Florida
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2116408731