The Tragedy of Ignaz Semmelweis: The Doctor Who Pioneered Hand-Washing

Nearly 150 years have passed since the groundbreaking contributions of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch helped lay the foundation of the germ theory of disease. Yet, its still a challenge to persuade healthcare providers to take hand-washing seriously. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that improper sanitization practices and cross contamination in hospitals results in roughly 1.7 million infections in the US alone, contributing to nearly 99,000 deaths each year. Hand hygiene is the single most important measure to reduce such infections. The importance of hand washing for human health was first recognized in the mid 19th century by a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis. Photo credit: freepik In 1846, Ignaz Semmelweis, who had recently received his medical degree from the University of Vienna, was appointed assistant at the maternity clinic of the Vienna General Hospital. His duties included examining patients each morning in preparation for the professor's rounds, supervising difficult deliveries, teaching students of obstetrics, as well as maintaining records. The hospital had two maternity clinics. One was staffed by all male doctors and medical students, and the other by female midwives. Semmelweis noticed that mortality among the patients in the clinic staffed by male doctors and medical students was two to three times higher than that in the midwives’ clinic. This puzzled Semmelweis. Surely, the doctors and the students were as trained as the midwives, if not better, in handling deliveries. So why are so many women in the first clinic dying of puerperal fever (also known as “childbed fever”)? Semmelweis set out to investigate. He examined all the similarities and differences of the two clinics to rule out possible causes. The first difference he discovered was that midwives gave birth to women on their sides, while in the doctor’s clinic, women gave birth on their backs.