Dispatch 2: Every Day is Ignaz Semmelweis Day
Radiolab
00:00
Ignis Semelweis - The Birth of a Child
In 1844, Ignis Semelice became an expert on childbirth in Vienna. Many of the young women who gave birth in his delivery ward died right after they delivered. He was really haunted by all these women who were dying in front of him. Purple fever is a disease with a strange name. It's not purple as in the color. The word comes from Latin purpera, which means woman who gives birth.
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