The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever

#467
Title: The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Publisher: Dodo Press
Year: 1843/2009
40 pages

I'm on a disease and public health kick, and I love me some Ignaz Semmelweis, so I was pleased to find this monograph by Oliver Wendell Holmes,arguing for the contagiousness of puerperal fever some years before Semmelweis. Both men were ridiculed and ignored, leaving it to Louis Pasteur to demonstrate convincingly and to public acclaim that medical personnel were transmitting germs from patient (or corpse) to patient. Holmes uses cases and anecdotes to bolster his argument, making this a vivid and interesting monograph.