Description

Hardcover, bound in genuine dark brown top-grain cowhide, with all edges gilt and covers brass-die stamped in 22kt gold. 893 pages. Translated by Frank P. Murphy; “Open Letters” edited with commentary and translated by Sherwin B. Nuland and Ferenc A. Gyorgyey. Additional refinements include bound in silk ribbon marker, raised spine hubs and specially commissioned marbled end-papers by Richard J. Wolfe. This special limited edition was prepared from an original 1941 first English translation. First edition thus, number 921, though the original subscriber’s book-plate is lacking from this copy, the other 150 odd titles in his collection from the Classics of Medicine Library were numbered as such (usually with book-plates laid-in loose and unused). A seminal work which established the author as the “father of infection control”. In the face of entrenched resistance Semmelweis argued for the prevention of childbed fever (puerperal fever) by the washing of physicians hands before attending expectant mothers based on empirical evidence of “doctors transferring “cadaveric particles” from autopsies to mothers via unwashed hands.” No previous ownership marks. A clean, fresh, unmarked and unread copy. As new.