Episode description

The biography show where famous guests pick someone from history they admire or they love. Our only rule is they must be dead. Today neurosurgeon Dr Henry Marsh chooses “the saviour of mothers” Dr Ignaz Semmelweis The Hungarian doctor discovered the link between childbirth and puerperal fever in 19th century Vienna but he was ridiculed, ignored and demoted as his discovery challenged the medical orthodoxy. Post-mortems at the time were carried out by doctors before they practised on wards, with no hygiene step between the two. Semmelweis recommended handwashing for doctors, and gathered statistics to prove his theory.

Despite the evidence, the medical establishment was resistant to change and Semmelweis became increasingly traumatised, frustrated and angry. In his final months, he seems to have also developed an organic brain disorder which led to his friends and wife having him restrained and sectioned in a mental asylum where he subsequently died from injuries. Nominator Dr Henry Marsh is the author of Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. With the playwright Stephen Brown who cowrote Dr Semmelweis with Sir Mark Rylance. Presented by Matthew Parris and produced for BBC Studios Audio by Ellie Richold