Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgical field.
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician and scientist of German descent, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures, and was described as the "saviour of mothers". Postpartum infection, also known as puerperal fever or childbed fever, consists of any bacterial infection of the reproductive tract following birth, and in the 19th century was common and often fatal. Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of infection could be drastically reduced by requiring healthcare workers in obstetrical clinics to disinfect their hands. In 1847, he proposed hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions at Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. The maternal mortality rate dropped from 18% to less than 2%, and he published a book of his findings, Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever in 1861.
Postpartum infections, also known as childbed fever and puerperal fever, are any bacterial infections of the female reproductive tract following childbirth or miscarriage. Signs and symptoms usually include a fever greater than 38.0 °C (100.4 °F), chills, lower abdominal pain, and possibly bad-smelling vaginal discharge. It usually occurs after the first 24 hours and within the first ten days following delivery.
Johann Baptist Chiari was an Austrian gynecologist and obstetrician born in Salzburg.
The Cry and the Covenant is a novel by Morton Thompson written in 1949 and published by Doubleday. The novel is a fictionalized story of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian physician known for his research into puerperal fever and his advances in medical hygiene. The novel includes historical references, and details into Semmelweis' youth and education, as well as his later studies.
Jakob Kolletschka was Professor of Forensic Medicine at Vienna General Hospital in Austria.
Carl Edvard Marius Levy was professor and head of the Danish Maternity institution in Copenhagen. His name is sometimes spelled "Carl Eduard Marius Levy" or, in foreign literature, "Karl Edouard Marius Levy".
Johann Klein was professor of obstetrics at the University of Salzburg and at the University of Vienna. Johann Baptist Chiari was his son-in-law. In Vienna, he was succeeded by professor Carl Braun in 1856.
Carl Braun, sometimes Carl Rudolf Braun alternative spelling: Karl Braun, or Karl von Braun-Fernwald, name after knighthood Carl Ritter von Fernwald Braun was an Austrian obstetrician. He was born 22 March 1822 in Zistersdorf, Austria, son of the medical doctor Carl August Braun.
Johann Lucas Boër, originally Johann Lucas Boogers was a German medical doctor and obstetrician.
Joseph Späth was professor of obstetrics in Vienna, and from 1873 to 1886 he was director of the second obstetrical clinic at the Vienna General Hospital.
Ignaz Semmelweis discovered in 1847 that hand-washing with a solution of chlorinated lime reduced the incidence of fatal childbed fever tenfold in maternity institutions. However, the reaction of his contemporaries was not positive; his subsequent mental disintegration led to him being confined to an insane asylum, where he died in 1865.
The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.
Joseph Hermann Schmidt was professor of obstetrics in Berlin, and official of the Prussian cultural ministry.
Carl Mayrhofer was a physician conducting work on the role of germs in childbed fever.
Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever is a pioneering medical book by Ignaz Semmelweis published in 1861, which explains how hygiene in hospitals can drastically reduce unnecessary deaths. The book and concept saved millions of mothers from a preventable, streptococcal infection.
Joseph Bolivar DeLee was an American physician who became known as the father of modern obstetrics. DeLee founded the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, where he introduced the first portable infant incubator. Early in his career, he was associated with the medical school at Northwestern University. After 1929, he was employed by the medical school at the University of Chicago.
Alexander Gordon MA, MD was a Scottish obstetrician best known for clearly demonstrating the contagious nature of puerperal sepsis. By systematically recording details of all visits to women with the condition, he concluded that it was spread from patient to patient by the attending midwife or doctor, and he published these findings in his 1795 paper "Treatise on the Epidemic Puerperal Fever of Aberdeen". On the basis of these conclusions, he advised that the spread could be limited by fumigation of the clothing and burning of the bed linen used by women with the condition and by cleanliness of her medical and midwife attendants. He also recognised a connection between puerperal fever and erysipelas, a skin infection later shown to be caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes, the same organism that causes puerperal fever. His paper gave insights into the contagious nature of puerperal sepsis around half a century before the better-known publications of Ignaz Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes and some eighty years before the role of bacteria as infecting agents was clearly understood. Gordon's textbook The Practice of Physik gives valuable insights into medical practice in the later years of the Enlightenment. He advised that clinical decisions be based on personal observations and experience rather than ancient aphorisms.
Robert Collins was an Irish physician who became master of the Rotunda Hospital aged 26. He pioneered methods to control the spread of puerperal fever in the hospital, and the use of the stethoscope in obstetrics.
In the mid to late nineteenth century, scientific patterns emerged which contradicted the widely held miasma theory of disease. These findings led medical science to what we now know as the germ theory of disease. The germ theory of disease proposes that invisible microorganisms are the cause of particular illnesses in both humans and animals. Prior to medicine becoming hard science, there were many philosophical theories about how disease originated and was transmitted. Though there were a few early thinkers that described the possibility of microorganisms, it was not until the mid to late nineteenth century when several noteworthy figures made discoveries which would provide more efficient practices and tools to prevent and treat illness. The mid-19th century figures set the foundation for change, while the late-19th century figures solidified the theory.
