Doctors, Washed Hands, and Death in Childbirth (ep. 15.3)

For centuries, one of the biggest causes of maternal death was puerperal fever or postpartum infection. Doctors proposed many theories and many remedies, but they were totally unprepared to accept the truth: doctors were spreading the infection themselves. And all they needed to do was some solid hand washing between each patient.

The feature image is by Rasheedhrasheed, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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