Professional pride and personal tragedy stymied ideas about how infections spread in the nineteenth century, suggests a show about maverick Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis. Professional pride and personal tragedy stymied ideas about how infections spread in the nineteenth century, suggests a show about maverick Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis.
PATRICK MARMION: Rylance is perfectly suited to the part. Narrating his story to his wife in later years, he comes across as a nervous dogmatist who is weirdly unsure of himself.
Set in nineteenth-century Vienna and Budapest, the storyline is rather more complex than the rejection of proven methodology, and the show goes into Semmelweis’ personal life.