Anthony Valerio [1]
from Semmelweis, the Women's Doctor
One gets the impression that for the two years that Semmelweis resided in Vienna, he did not leave the hospital grounds. Not a pleasant walk outside the flowering grounds or a visit to a colleague or acquaintance. There’s no hint of an amorous life. He dwelled within the space of the disease he would conquer. The life of Semmelweis emerges in a purely claustrophobic manner, tied irrevocably to one new mother after another, hundreds upon hundreds of them, many of whom lived to see how their children turned out, many not. When he slept, the odor of decomposing animal matter played around his nostrils. The nocturnal tinkling of the priest’s ominous bell tormented him. In this way, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis resembles the obsessive Captain Ahab, in the end entangled forever to the back of the unfathomable white whale of his quest. Semmelweis marches into medical history and lore tied to the back of a new mother afflicted with puerperal fever.