"The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever? (1843), by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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چکیده
In 1843, physician Oliver Wendell Holmes [2] wrote and published "The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever," an essay about puerperal fever, a disease that occurs mainly as a result of bacterial infection in the uterine tract of women after giving birth or undergoing an abortion [3]. In the essay, Holmes argues that puerperal fever is spread through birth attendants like physicians and midwives who make contact with the disease and carry it from patient to patient. The article was published in The New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery in 1843. Holmes, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, later republished his essay as a private publication in 1855 with a different title, "Puerperal Fever as a Private Pestilence." Holmes's essay was one of the first publications to present puerperal fever as a contagious disease and to discuss preventative measures to inhibit the spread of puerperal fever, which helped preserve the lives of pregnant women and their newborns.
منابع مشابه
Epidemiology of puerperal fever: the contributions of Alexander Gordon.
The historical controversy regarding priority in the discovery of the contagiousness of puerperal fever' persists, most medical historians ascribing it to two nineteenth-century physicians: the American Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)2 and/or the Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis (I1818-1865).3 That conclusion, however, is not borne out by this study. It is true that Holmes was the first American ph...
متن کاملThe British medical profession and contagion theory: puerperal fever as a case study, 1830-1860.
AmR EXAMINING the reactions of physicians to sporadic, socially disruptive epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, and the plague, historians have concluded that "anticontagionism" characterized medical thought in the first half of the nineteenth century.' That conclusion is not borne out by this study. It is true that well-known figures confronted with the task of explaining the capricious visitat...
متن کاملSemmelWeis and his predecessors.
IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS is generally known for identifying puerperal fever as an infectious disease preventable by aseptic methods. While no-one today would contest the importance, the practicality, or the independence of his contribution, its originality has been disputed from the beginning. When Semmelweis first reported his ideas in Vienna, a veterinarian claimed priority for the discovery.' The fi...
متن کاملDietrich v. Inhabitants of Northampton [Brief] (1884)
This influential opinion by famed jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes [5], Jr. was copied by courts throughout the United States. For over sixty years, courts refused to recognize a cause of action on behalf of a child who died before or after birth as a result of injuries suffered in the womb [6] because the fetus [7] was considered legally a part of its mother and thus did not possess personhood [8]...
متن کاملBonbrest v. Kotz [Brief] (1946)
This influential opinion was copied throughout the United States allowing civil actions and wrongful death [5] claims on behalf of children who suffered injuries while a viable [6] fetus [7]. The case essentially overruled the opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes [8], Jr. in Dietrich v. Inhabitants of Northampton (1884). However, the ability to sue was usually limited in two ways: the fetus...
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