Semmelweis Handwashing Analysis

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865)

A Hungarian physician active at the Vienna General Hospital. In the early 1840s, up to 10 % of women who gave birth there died of childbed fever. Semmelweis discovered the cause: doctors delivered babies immediately after performing autopsies, without washing their hands. He mandated handwashing in June 1847, cutting mortality dramatically — but was ridiculed by his peers and eventually forced to leave Vienna.