Did you have time to dedicate yourself to a really good read this summer? If not, we would like to recommend Anna Durnovas book “Ignaz Semmelweis – Pioneer of Hygiene” (published 2015 in German, Residenz Verlag) for two reasons. First – the book is much associated with the year 2018 (Ignaz Semmelweis was born on July 1st, 1818), and second: This book is surprisingly up to date. Political scientist Anna Durnova demonstrates in impressive way that innovation is always accompanied by resistances. No life shows this better than that of Ignaz Semmelweis, who discovered the childbed fever and who got in conflict with the establishment.
This conflict gives us for today’s medical development an essential lesson, Durnova is convinced. The lesson is, that we look at the conflict not as an error but as an essential part of the establishment of scientific truths. In these conflicts the old – considered as safe knowledge – hits to a new knowledge and this is leading to violent clashes, as Semmelweis experienced them.
We want to animate you to read it, because Anna Durnova succeeded to explain complex issues in a comprehensive way.
A must to read for people who work in the field of hospital hygiene, for everyone who wants to look behind the curtain of medical development and for all who like reading exciting stories about the search for the truth.
Did you believe that science is dry and factual? Read this book!
