Yet, its still a challenge to persuade healthcare providers to take hand-washing seriously.
Hand hygiene is the single most important measure to reduce such infections.
The hospital had two maternity clinics.
One was staffed by all male doctors and medical students, and the other by female midwives.
Semmelweis set out to investigate.
He examined all the similarities and differences of the two clinics to rule out possible causes.
So he had women in the doctors' clinic give birth on their sides, but to no avail.
An autopsy of Kolletschka revealed a pathology similar to that of the women who were dying from puerperal fever.
Semmelweis could immediately see a connection.
Semmelweis realized that there was one major difference between the two clinics that he had overlooked.
Doctors and students started their day by doing autopsies on women who had died on the previous night.
The midwives, on the other hand, did no autopsies.
Semmelweiss solution was simplehe mandated hand-washing across his department.
Chlorine is a powerful disinfectant, although Semmelweis wouldnt have known that.
He chose chlorine simply because it was effective in removing the putrid smell of infected autopsy tissue.
Ignaz Semmelweis washing his hands in chlorinated lime water before operating.
The medical community largely ignored, rejected, and sometimes ridiculed Semmelweis for his dirty hands theory.
Semmelweiss lack of tact made him many enemies forcing him to leave Vienna for Budapest.
In Budapest, Semmelweis became the head-physician of the obstetric ward of a small hospital.
After mandating hand-washing there, Semmelweis virtually eliminated the disease.
In 1855, Semmelweis became the professor of obstetrics at University of Pest.
He instituted chlorine washings at the University of Pest maternity clinic, and once again the results were impressive.
The book was heavily criticized, and Semmelweis spiraled deeper into depression, rage and frustration.
He ended up in a mental asylum in 1865, where the guards subjected him to severe beatings.
He died two weeks later from a gangrenous wound he received from the beatings.
His death received few mentions in medical periodicals in Vienna and Budapest.
There was no address for Semmelweis.
His death was never even mentioned.
After his death, Janos Diescher was appointed Semmelweis’s successor at the Pest University maternity clinic.
Immediately, mortality rates increased sixfold, but the physicians of Budapest said nothing.
There were no inquiries and no protests.
