The Cry and the Covenant is a novel by Morton Thompson

Morton Thompson

Morton Thompson was an American writer of newspaper journalism, novels and film screenplays. Amongst his works were a collection of journalistic memoirs called Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player, and the novels Not as a Stranger and The Cry and the Covenant. He was also the inventor of the...

 written in 1949 and published by Doubleday. The novel is a fictionalized story of Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics...

, an Austrian-Hungarian

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 physician known for his research into puerperal fever

Puerperal fever

Puerperal fever or childbed fever, is a bacterial infection contracted by women during childbirth or miscarriage. It can develop into puerperal sepsis, which is a serious form of septicaemia. If untreated, it is often fatal....

 and his advances in medical hygiene. The novel includes historical references, and details into Semmelweis' youth and education, as well as his later studies.

Synopsis

Ignaz Semmelweis is a curious child who often gets in trouble at school for asking too many questions. Later in life, he travels to Vienna to study medicine, having been taken under the wing of a wealthy friend. Ignaz concludes that washing hands prevents puerperal fever infections. Because of his nationality his theories are scoffed at and he is eventually driven mad in the face of the ignorance which causes so much death. He later commits suicide by slashing open his hands and thrusting them into a corpse, later to die of puerperal fever.