Hand hygiene against puerperal fever (Semmelweis)
Lavado de manos contra la fiebre puerperal
- Date
- 1847 · confidence high
- Place
- Vienna General Hospital, Austria
- Credited to
- Ignaz Semmelweis
- People
- 👤 Ignaz Semmelweis1818–1865
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
He demonstrated statistically that handwashing with chlorinated lime reduced maternal mortality from 18% to under 2%, showing that the disease was transmitted by 'cadaverous particles'.
Rejected by his contemporaries, he died in an asylum in 1865.
What it led to
- hospital hygiene
- clinical epidemiology based on data
- Lister's antisepsis
- control of nosocomial infections
Built on
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1843)
Made possible
- Antiseptic surgery (Lister)1867
- hand hygiene protocols