The Cry and the Covenant, published in 1949, is the topic of a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cry_and_the_Covenant.
This was a semi-fictional account based largely on the life of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian physician who was concerned about "childbed fever," the popular name for a condition called puerperal fever that took the lives of many women giving birth.
At that time, early in the 19th Century, little was known about the role of microorganisms in causing disease, and even less about how to combat them.
But carefully observing the treatment of women in labor who were often examined by many doctors as well as medical students, Dr. Semmelweis became convinced that certain precautions were needed.
He therefore instituted a requirement that before examining any patient, a strict procedure of washing and disinfecting hands was to be followed.
While this drastically reduced the maternal death rate from puerperal fever, the hospital administration and senior staff only ridiculed Dr. Semmelweis and tried to countermand his orders.
Dr. Semmelweis continued to pass out handbills to women urging them to require their doctors to wash their hands before examining them.
For all of this, Dr. Semmelweis was considered crazy and eventually consigned to a mental institution (where he died of an infection contracted there.)
Today, any medical institution that did not facilitate and insist on appropriate hand washing practices would likely be shut down!
Sometimes when a political leader ridicules protective measures now in place to slow the spread of COVID19, I think of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis.
I would love to see The Cry and the Covenant back in print!
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