The Tragedy of Childbed Fever

Childbed fever was by the far the most common cause of deaths associated with childbirth throughout Europe up to the Second World War. Otherwise known as puerperal fever, it was an infection which followed childbirth and resulted in miserable and agonizing deaths for thousands of women every year. This book provides the first detailed account of this tragic disease from its recognition in the eighteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century, examining it within a fully comprehensive history of infectious diseases.

Irvine Loudon is a freelance historian of medicine.