"The Death Of Medicine" is the startling saga of the man called "The Savior Of Mothers". Historians have given Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis this honor because he miraculously reduced death rates in every maternity clinic that he directed. However, even in the present day, there is not only a possibility, but perhaps even a probability that the devastating epidemics confronted by Doctor Semmelweis could recur. Therefore, his innovations are relevant not only to mothers and mothers-to-be but to people everywhere. Even in modern times there are those who doubt the link Doctor Semmelweis created between the fevers that were killing thousands of women and the cause he assigned to these deaths. The same nonchalance and disbelief toward what Doctor Semmelweis called "particles" still exists in the attitude toward public hygiene by much of the populace around the world. Why should anyone believe these 'black magic' ideas that date to the eye-opening results that Semmelweis's innovations achieved? Why should anyone believe in his life-saving theory if his ideas defy all logic and depend on invisible actors? Doctor Semmelweis confronted one of the greatest medical mysteries of all time and paved the way for the ideas of Pasteur and Lister to be accepted decades later. Why have most people never read his incredible story? That's one of the greater shocks of this fictional biography based on real events and statistics. "The Death Of Medicine" details Doctor Semmelweis's excruciating struggle so that we citizens of the world remember how and why our knowledge developed, so that we appreciate why we no longer have the incredible death rates that prevailed before Doctor Semmelweis's crusade, and so that we preserve the gains of his discoveries by examining their roots.
About the Author: I wrote "The Death Of Medicine" because I was fascinated with the dedication of Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis. I also felt that history had treated him unjustly, confining his inspiring but shocking biography to the slush pile (the place where stories go to die). The kind of injustice toward a flawed medical giant detailed in this book deserves to be noted and corrected. I am a man who wants to live a mannered and caring life. I also believe that if others internalize this desire, it will make existence much easier and more enjoyable for all of us. I also want my serious writing to have a purpose, to improve the current of opinion and to move it, if possible, a few centimeters in the direction of reason and compassion. I visualized the number of times I've seen an obviously miserable store clerk, fighting influenza or some other contagion, lick her fingers to separate the flaps of the bag into whch she will load my groceries. I remembered the number of times that someone sitting next to me or across from me has coughed or sneezed without covering his or her mouth. Would it be pettiness to correct politely this behavior? Surprisingly, even with so many people currently lacking health insurance, and even with the staggering cost of medical expenses, many people seem to believe I would be rude if I asked someone to cover his or her mouth. This is just one of the reasons I was drawn to the crusade of Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, a hero to health care workers everywhere.