page_title: Ignaz Semmelweis
section_title: Analysis of childbed fever mortality
hierarchical_section_title: Ignaz Semmelweis / Work on cause of childbed fever mortality / Analysis of childbed fever mortality
caption_attribution_description: English: Puerperal fever yearly mortality rates for the First and Second Clinic at the Vienna General Hospital 1841-1846. The First Clinic evidently has the larger mortality rate.
context_page_description: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician and scientist, now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.
  Despite various publications of results where hand washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it.
context_section_description: Semmelweis was severely troubled that his First Clinic had a much higher mortality rate due to puerperal fever than the Second Clinic. It "made me so miserable that life seemed worthless". The two clinics used almost the same techniques, and Semmelweis started eliminating all possible differences, including even religious practices. The only major difference was the individuals who worked there. The First Clinic was the teaching service for medical students, while the Second Clinic had been selected in 1841 for the instruction of midwives only.
  He excluded "overcrowding" as a cause, since the Second Clinic was always more crowded and yet the mortality was lower. He eliminated climate as a cause because the climate was the same.
caption: Puerperal fever mortality rates for the First and Second Clinics at the Vienna General Hospital 1841–1846: The First Clinic has the higher mortality rate.
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