Thrush - nightmare of the foundling hospitals

Abstract

Before safe artificial nutrition, refrigeration, and microorganisms became known, thrush was a severe and frequently lethal disease in foundling hospitals. Overcrowded and understaffed, these institutions were the ideal breeding ground for this disease. Malnutrition, especially when breastfeeding was denied, contributed to the fatal course. Nosocomial infections and high mortality led to a prejudice against infant hospitals in the late 19th century. Candida albicans was discovered in 1840 when a cooperation at the Paris Foundling Hospital between the Hungarian emigrant David Gruby and the Swede Frederik Berg led to this organism being the first pathogen to be identified. After World War II, Candida infections increased with the use of antibiotics. The disease became less threatening after the development of nystatin, the result of an interdisciplinary cooperation in New York between the microbiologist Elizabeth Hazen and the biochemist Rachel Brown.