Ignaz

Dr Stephen Isso, medical examiner, is sent to Watersmeet, a three-year old settlement on the planet Hazelin. There has been an outbreak of disease with the hallmarks of severe sepsis. At molecular autopsy, Isso discovers an abnormal immune system. The victim was primed to die. Then, during a disorientating hallucination, Isso observes another autopsy; that of the famous 19th-century Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis. The same Semmelweis who, through his discovery of hand-hygiene and his implacable attitude, saved millions and sacrificed his own health. Thus Stephen Isso is drawn into a conspiracy that spans millennia, and brings into doubt that all we know about humanity's resistance to infection.