Iatrogenesis
Videos
Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. First used in this sense in 19
Ancient Greek painting in a vase, showing a physician (iatros) bleeding a patient
Historically, puerperal fever was a devastating disease. It affected women within the first three days after childbirth and progressed rapidly, causing acute symptoms of severe abdominal pain, fever a
Iatrogenesis
…part became a punishable offense in many civilizations. The transfer of pathogens from the autopsy room to maternity patients, leading to shocking historical mortality rates of puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") at maternity institutions in the 19th century, was a major iatrogenic catastrophe of the era. The infection mechanism…
Vienna General Hospital in 1784. Semmelweis worked at the maternity clinic. Copper engraving by Josef & Peter Schafer
Hôtel Dieu in Paris, about ad 1500. The priest on the right is issuing the last sacraments, while a nun administers to the patient on the left. Patients often slept two, three and even four to a bed