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, early and/or life:
“The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)