I'm on a disease and public health kick, and I love me some Ignaz Semmelweis, so I was pleased to find this monograph by Oliver Wendell Holmes,arguing for the contagiousness of puerperal fever some years before Semmelweis. Both men were ridiculed and ignored, leaving it to Louis Pasteur to demonstrate convincingly and to public acclaim that medical personnel were transmitting germs from patient (or corpse) to patient. Holmes uses cases and anecdotes to bolster his argument, making this a vivid and interesting monograph. ( )