Childbed Fever - Cover Sheet

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Author - Elaine Butler - Summer 1998

Case Purpose This case requires students to develop ‘explanatory stories’ or hypotheses to explain striking differences in mortality rates in two maternity wards in a Vienna hospital in the middle of the 19th century. The students are given the same information available to the physician Ignaz Semmelweis who first observed the difference and who eventually discovered the true cause of puerperal sepsis (childbed fever)..

Relation to Texts This case could be used in conjunction with chapters 1 and 2 of Carey (he actually refers to Semmelweis in chapter 1) where formulating explanatory stories and establishing causal links are discussed. The case is also relevant to the latter part of chapter 2 in the new Ziman text - explanation, cause and effect, hypotheses and theories, serendipity in science and to chapter 5 - authority.

Description of Case Materials Each student is given two handouts which are at the end of the teaching notes.

Case Use

Reference List Most of the material for this case came from ‘The Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever’ by Ignaz Semmelweis in Medicine : A Treasury of Art and Literature (1991) 136 - 147 Ann G. Carmichael and Richard M. Rantzen eds. These are on order August 1998C