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Before anyone knew germs existed, one obstetrician figured out that doctors were unknowingly carrying death from the autopsy table to the delivery room. Chlorinated lime and a hand wash cut mortality by nearly tenfold. His reward was professional ruin, a breakdown, and being sent to an asylum.
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If a pregnant woman chose the latter, the day of her childbirth would determine if she was treated by the Vienna General Hospital’s physicians and their students, or by resident midwives, who would alternate when they worked. In the doctor-run First Division, maternal mortality rates from childbed fever were as high as 18%, roughly three times the rate of the midwives’ ward.to be admitted on “safe” days, or sometimes preferred to avoid the hospital in general.
The leading cause, not just in the Vienna General Hospital, but across Europe, was Childbed fever. This deadly infection of the reproductive tract typically followed delivery and has been recognized since antiquity, even if physicians remained ignorant to its cause. Despite the measurable disparity in mortality rates, no one could explain why one ward was more dangerous than the other next door. The 1840s was still the era of miasma theory, imbalance bodily humors and poorly explained “epidemic influences.
” Germs, as a medical concept, were still unknown. Physicians of the period regarded themselves as highly educated gentleman-scientists. The idea that perhaps the doctor’s actual hands might be to blame was seen as scientifically unfounded and even insulting. But there was no denying that something in the First Division was causing more women to die.
In 1846, a young Hungarian obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweist began working at the Vienna General Hospital and turned his attention to solving this conundrum. He would go on to suffer the fate of many medical minds who were ahead of their time, discovering something new and then seeing his ideas repeatedly rejected. He ruled out what seemed at the time as the obvious candidates, overcrowding in the ward, the woman’s diet, even the delivery position.
Other physicians favored ventilating the hospital, to help clear the mystical “miasma” that wasfor many illnesses. The first real clue came in 1847, when Semmelweis’s colleague, a professor of forensic medicine, died from an infection contracted after cutting himself during an autopsy. Semmelweis noted that the symptoms leading up to his death closely resembled those of the women dying from Childbed fever in the ward.
He realized that medical students and physicians would often perform autopsies before moving on to work in the maternal ward. Semmelweis theorized that they must be carrying with them “cadaverous particles” on their hands and then transferring them to the unfortunate women in the ward during examinations. Midwives, in contrast, never handled cadavers. That year, he ordered everyone entering the First Division to scrub their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime.
His reasoning was that the solution would remove the smell of decay.in the First division fell from 18% to 2% in a matter of months. The Viennese medical establishment was unmoved. While Semmelweis could describe the pattern, he could not explain the underlying mechanism, as germ theory did not yet exist. To his contemporaries, his findings were seen as a lucky coincidence rather than science.
They were similarly hostile to the idea that respected doctors were unwittinglytheir patients. He did not publish any papers on his findings at this time, hampering the spread of his ideas. When Semmelweis’s contract expired in 1849, his supervisor declined to renew it. To add insult to injury, his contributions or lowering the mortality rate in the First Division were credited to other unrelated causes.
Semmelweis returned to Hungary and became head of obstetrics at St. Rochus Hospital in Pest. He instituted the same handwashing protocol and helped cut mortality rates from 10-15% down to under 1%. His methods found more popularity in Hungary than in Vienna and other hospitals began introducing them. Semmelweis wasn’t alone internationally, a few years earlier, American physician Oliver Wendell Holmes had published an,” arguing that Childbed fever passed from patient to patient via birth attendants.
Ahead of his contemporaries, he identified the mechanism, writing that “The disease, known as Puerperal Fever, is so far contagious as to be frequently carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses. ” Similarly to Semmelweis, Holmes’ ideas were met with resistance from the medical establishment. Following the end of his time at the Vienna General Hospital, Semmelweis grew increasingly bitter over the medical establishment’s refusal to budge and the deaths it was causing.
He wrote an essay,” which was considered long, repetitive and combative. Following unfavorable reviews of his 1861 book, Semmelweis began to lash out, publishing open letters branding his skeptical ex-colleagues as murderers. He would demand other doctors arrange a conference of physicians where he could argue his ideas,Those who worked with him in the mid-1860s described him as growing increasingly erratic.
Historians suggest that this could have been a result of neurological or psychiatric illness, tertiary syphilis or just exhaustion at seeing decades of preventable deaths. The idea that he was locked away for his ideas is an oversimplified modern myth, but the real story is just as tragic. In July of 1865, Semmelweis’s colleagues arranged to have him committed to a recently opened asylum in Vienna, reportedly by luring him there under the context of viewing the new medical facility.
When he realized what was happening, he attempted to resist and was forcibly restrained. He died two weeks later, on August 13th, 1865. He was 47 years old. The cause of death was recorded as pyaemia, also known as blood poisoning, likely arising from a gangrenous wound caused during the struggle, the sort of infection he’d spent his career trying to prevent.germ theory, supplying the mechanism Semmelweis needed to prove his theory.
British surgeon Joseph Lister would apply the same logic to his, using carbolic acid as an antiseptic, which helped reduce post-operative mortality. This would earn Lister the title “Father of modern surgery. ”Chemistry can now explain what Semmelweis could only observe. Soap molecules are amphiphilic, meaning that one of their ends binds to water, the other to fat.
Many bacteria are “wrapped” in a fatty outer membrane. When soap meets that membrane, its fat-loving ends wedge in and pull it apart, disabling that microbe. The water-loving ends carry the debris away under running water.scrubbing for at least 20 seconds rather than just quickly rinsing. The chemical action and physical friction both need time to do their work.
Childbed fever is now understood to be mainlyby Group A Streptococcus bacteria, introduced into the uterus during or after delivery, hand-to-patient. Hand washing interrupts this. The practice that cost Semmelweis’s career and which lack arguably contributed to his death is now considered one of the most basic and uncontested tools in medicine. Semmelweis is regarded as a pioneer in infection control and sometimes called the “savior of mothers” and a medical university in Budapest bears his name.
His story gave rise to the term “Semmelweis reflex”, used to describe the reflexive rejection of evidence that contradicts established belief. I am a writer at Bored Panda. Despite being born in the US, I ended up spending most of my life in Europe, from Latvia, Austria, and Georgia to finally settling in Lithuania. At Bored Panda, you’ll find me covering topics ranging from the cat meme of the day to red flags in the workplace and really anything else.
In my free time, I enjoy hiking, beating other people at board games, cooking, good books, and bad films. I am a writer at Bored Panda. Despite being born in the US, I ended up spending most of my life in Europe, from Latvia, Austria, and Georgia to finally settling in Lithuania. At Bored Panda, you’ll find me covering topics ranging from the cat meme of the day to red flags in the workplace and really anything else.
In my free time, I enjoy hiking, beating other people at board games, cooking, good books, and bad films. I'm the Visual Editor at Bored Panda, responsible for ensuring that everything our audience sees is top-notch and well-researched. What I love most about my job? Discovering new things about the world and immersing myself in exceptional photography and art.
I'm the Visual Editor at Bored Panda, responsible for ensuring that everything our audience sees is top-notch and well-researched. What I love most about my job? Discovering new things about the world and immersing myself in exceptional photography and art.
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