In Search of the Cause of Death of Dr. Semmelweis: From Budapest to Vienna and Back Again

Event Details

Type

Other Tri-Institutional Events

Speaker(s)

Andrew Schafer, M.D., professor of medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine

Event URL

https://weillcornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sbWNrol8RO6nWrNM6wahLQ

Speaker bio(s)

In the mid-19th century a young obstetrician working under an aristocratic and autocratic obstetrics chief at the University of Vienna’s medical school made a discovery that has—even today—saved an inestimable number of lives.The Hungarian Ingác Semmelweis was appalled to find that up to a quarter of all women admitted to the Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien, Vienna’s city hospital for the indigent, died in their peripartum period. Under threat of being fired if he intervened, Semmelweis explored why these women died and how to prevent their deaths. He was later driven out of Vienna by the medical establishment and political forces, and died of mysterious causes two weeks after being committed to an insane asylum. Dr. Andrew Schafer, Professor of Medicine in Hematology-Oncology and Director of the Richard T. Silver Center for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms, will present on the adventures he encountered while writing a book on the remarkable events of Dr. Ingác Semmelweis’s life.

Open to

Public

Host

Heberden Society

Contact

Nicole Milano

Phone

(212) 746-6072

Sponsor

Nicole Milano
(212) 746-6072
njm4001@med.cornell.edu

Notes

Registration for this Zoom lecture is required.