Family and Early Life
Ignaz Semmelweis was born on July 1, 1818 in the Tabán, an area of Buda, part of present Budapest, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He was the fifth child out of ten of a prosperous grocer family of Josef and Teresia Müller Semmelweis.
His father, Josef Semmelweis (1778–1846), was born in Kismarton, at that time in Hungary. Josef achieved permission to set up shop in Buda in 1806 and, in the same year, opened a wholesale business with spices and general consumer goods named zum Weißen Elefanten (at the White Elephant) in Meindl-Haus in Tabán (today's 1-3, Apród Street, Semmelweis Museum of Medical History). By 1810, he was a wealthy man when he married Teresia Müller, daughter of the famous coach (vehicle) builder Fülöp Müller.
Ignaz Semmelweis began studying law at the University of Vienna in the autumn of 1837, but by the following year, for reasons that are no longer known, he had switched to medicine. He was awarded his doctorate degree in medicine in 1844. After failing to obtain an appointment in a clinic for internal medicine, Semmelweis decided to specialize in obstetrics. Some of his teachers included Carl von Rokitansky, Josef Skoda and Ferdinand von Hebra.
Read more about this topic: Ignaz Semmelweis
Famous quotes containing the words family and, family, early and/or life:
“In former times and in less complex societies, children could find their way into the adult world by watching workers and perhaps giving them a hand; by lingering at the general store long enough to chat with, and overhear conversations of, adults...; by sharing and participating in the tasks of family and community that were necessary to survival. They were in, and of, the adult world while yet sensing themselves apart as children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Children need money. As they grow older they need more money. They need money for essentially the same reasons that adults need money. They need to buy stuff....They need it regardless of whether they get good grades, violate a family rule, or offend a parent.”
—Donald C. Medeiros (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“When this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)