Word: semmelweiss
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Dates: during 1981-1981
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...SEMMELWEISS by Howard Sackler...
This is the tale of a cure and a crucifixion. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss (1818-65) was a pioneer in antisepsis. As a young doctor in the obstetrics wards of a Viennese hospital, Semmelweiss saw a dismaying number of women die in convulsive agony after giving birth. Because he dared to analyze the cause, Semmelweiss was hounded into madness by disbelieving colleagues and the inflexible Pooh-Bahs of European medicine. Despite a loving wife (Jeanne Koren) and sister (Mary Lou Rosato), he died as a historical martyr of truth...
This bio-documentary drama is presented by Stamford, Conn.'s Hartman Theater Company in the style of an epic panorama. Masterly orchestrated by Director Edwin Sherin to women's dying wails and the irate melodramatic confrontations of men in white whose hearts are black, Semmelweiss sifts its way to the stillness of revelation...
...Semmelweiss studied the data and made the leap of inductive logic. Ward I was served by midwives and had a mortality rate of 2%. Ward II was served by interns and had a mortality rate of 13%. The midwives did not examine their pregnant patients. The interns did examine theirs-with unwashed hands, shortly after dissecting corpses. The agency of infection is clear, and so is the stormy response of complacently entrenched ignorance. In the title role, Jeffrey DeMunn is prickly, volatile and poignant. Playwright Sackler reanimates the theme of his The Great White Hope: a man who defies...
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