Semmelweis's Handwashing Routine 1847 – Saving Lives

The authors K. Codell Carter and Barbara Carter write: 

“Medical advances are won through two kinds of sacrifice: that of researchers seeking to understand disease and that of patients who die in the process. One of the clearest examples was the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of young women who died of puerperal fever, a terrible postpartum febrile infection common in charitable maternity clinics in the early 19th century.”

Although many physicians tried to spread awareness of the importance of cleanliness in preventing infection before microorganisms were discovered as a cause of disease, the first person to become known for systematic work on disinfection was the Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis. 

At the Vienna hospital where he worked, Semmelweis noticed that, compared with a similar hospital, the maternal death rate from puerperal fever was much higher. He also noticed that only at his own hospital did physicians routinely examine corpses before examining patients.

Puerperal fever, or blood poisoning, is the body's excessive response to severe bacterial infections arising within it. Semmelweis observed that puerperal fever was rare among women who gave birth in the street and concluded that infectious material was passing from corpses to women. After he instructed hospital staff to wash their hands with a chlorinated disinfectant solution before treating any woman, the number of deaths fell dramatically.

Unfortunately, despite his remarkable results, many physicians of the time did not accept the findings, perhaps to avoid having to “admit that they had unknowingly caused so many deaths.” Many physicians also attributed such diseases to miasma, a kind of toxic atmosphere. 

Sadly, in the end, Semmelweis lost his sanity, was forcibly confined to a mental institution and was beaten to death there by healthcare staff. Only after his death did the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur's work on germs and the British surgeon Joseph Lister's innovations in antiseptic surgery vindicate Semmelweis.

About the Article Image: Physicians washing their hands before surgery

Historical Figures Mentioned in the Article: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865), Louis Pasteur (1822– 1895), Sir Joseph Lister (1827–1912)

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