Semmelweis Demonstrates Handwashing Prevents Childbed Fever

Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865), working at Vienna General Hospital, observed that mortality from childbed fever in the doctor-attended ward ran as high as 35%, versus around 1–2% in the midwife ward. After colleague Jakob Kolletschka died of a similar infection following a scalpel wound during autopsy, Semmelweis concluded doctors were transmitting 'cadaverous particles' from dissections to patients. Instituting chlorinated lime handwashing reduced mortality to under 2%. Rejected by the medical establishment during his lifetime, he was posthumously vindicated by Pasteur's germ theory, becoming a founding figure of infection control.