Publisher's Synopsis
This text describes the first study of hospital-acquired infections from the psychological perspective. In a systematic probing of the attitudes and behaviour of clinical staff towards handwashing, the single most important preventative measure, factors hitherto implicated are eliminated one by one. The responsibility for avoidable infections is here asserted to lie within the psyche of individuals, and explains why Semmelweis's precepts, though consistently validated by generations of medical scientists, remain unheeded in practice.
