Posted on April 12, 2021 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Less than two hundred years ago, the thought that hand-washing could prevent the spread of disease was seen as radical — which, in turn, seems crazy today.
Yet that’s the uphill battle that a young Hungarian doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, faced in the late 1840s.
Semmelweis is definitely getting the last laugh nowadays, though, with 2020’s obsession with clean hands — and with a medical journal detailing his research headed for an impressive auction showing.
The Guardian reports that an 1850 edition of the Society of Viennese Doctors’ medical journal, in which a colleague explains what Semmelweis discovered about hygiene, goes to auction this week.
The guide price is £12,000 to £18,000 (about $16,500 to $24,700).
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Categories: Today in Books