Famous doctors: Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician who paved the way for the discovery of germs when he found a cure for Puerperal fever. His discovery was so advanced it was widely unaccepted by the medical community. Read his amazing story below.

Why is he famous?

He became an assistant in the first obstetrical clinic of the Vienna General Hospital. He began investigating the causes of puerperal fever against the advice of his superiors who believed it to be non-preventable. Puerperal fever is a serious form of septicaemia (blood poisoning) contracted by women during or shortly after childbirth.

Maternal mortality due to puerperal fever was high and many women preferred to give birth on the street rather than being brought to the hospital.

An accidental discovery

In 1847, a friend of Semmelweis died from an infection contracted after his finger was accidentally punctured with a knife while performing a postmortem examination. The autopsy showed a pathological situation similar to that of the women who were dying from puerperal fever.

Semmelweis immediately proposed a connection between cadaveric contamination and puerperal fever and made a detailed study of the mortality statistics of the obstetrical clinic. He concluded that he and the students carried the infecting particles on their hands from the autopsy room to the patients they examined in the obstetrical clinic.

How clean hands saved lives

The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed at the time so Semmelweis concluded that some unknown "cadaveric material" caused childbed fever. He instituted a policy of using a solution of chlorinated lime for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients. In April 1847 the mortality rate was 18.3 percent.

Hand-washing was instituted mid-May, the rates in June were 2.2 percent, July 1.2 percent and in August 1.9 percent.

Life before germs

There were ideological issues at the time that prevented the medical establishment from recognizing and applying the findings of Semmelweis. His claims were thought to lack scientific basis, since no explanation was given for his findings. At the time, diseases were attributed to many different and unrelated causes. Each case was considered unique, just like a human person is unique.

Semmelweis' hypothesis, that there was only one cause, that all that mattered was cleanliness, was extreme at the time, and was largely ignored, rejected or ridiculed. He was dismissed from his hospital and had difficulty finding employment as a medical doctor.

Such a scientific explanation was only made possible some decades later when the germ theory of disease was developed by Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and others.

The establishment's failure to recognize his findings earlier led to the tragic and unnecessary death of thousands of young mothers. Semmelweis' practice only earned widespread acceptance years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease which offered a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis's findings.

Semmelweis is considered the father of antiseptic procedures.

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