The Austro-Hungarian physician learned a lack of hygiene among physicians as the cause of puerperal fever, which killed at that time many mothers dramatically. His tireless efforts to persuade the doctors to disinfect the hands joined, but at the vehement opposition of colleagues. Thus, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was posthumously as the “savior of mothers” award. Because until 1867, two years with Semmelweis’ death, was a Scottish physician Joseh Lister that disinfection of the operating desk in the operating room significantly reduces mortality. It was recalled back to the work of Semmelweis, who came so late to honor …
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was the first July 1818 in oven at Buda (now Budapest) was born.
He studied philosophy at the University of Pest, but then changed in 1837 to the University of Vienna, where he started studying medicine. Semmelweis and his doctorate in 1844 became Master of Obstetrics. 1845 Semmelweis received a doctorate in surgery, in the following year he was appointed Assistant to the Obstetric Clinic of the General Hospital in Vienna. There he made two observations that were critical to his future career: First, he notes that the death rate among women is even in the department of the hospital was peak for the doctors and medical students were responsible. And indeed much higher than in the department, which was reserved for the midwives.
Second, he noticed that the symptoms of blood poisoning, in this time of the forensic scientist friend Jacob K. Kolletschka died with those of puerperal fever were identical. Kolletschka was injured when dissecting a corpse. Semmelweis drew from two observations suggest that “body parts” in the blood came, and so brought about the disease. This seemed logical, in view of the fact that many physicians came directly from the dissection in the operating room. Semmelweis started in 1847 by then that the doctors must wash their hands with chlorinated lime. The mortality rate among women fell rapidly. Yet he earned from his colleagues ridicule and contempt.
The doctors did not want to admit that it is precisely they should be responsible for the deaths of women. In 1850 he gave a address on puerperal fever in the Medical Society, receives the order for his services but only a lectureship in “Theoretical obstetrics”. Frustrated, Semmelweis returned back to Pest, where he received a professorship in 1855 at the University of obstetrics. To disseminate his discoveries, he started to write “open letters”, but found only a few colleagues heard. 1861 he published his work “etiology, concept and prophylaxis of childbed fever.” 1865 Semmelweis was taken because of a mental disorder in the state mental hospital in Vienna.
Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis died there on 13 Dignified 1865 – just at a wound infection.
Not until 1867, two years with Semmelweis’ death, was a Scottish physician Joseh Lister that disinfection of the operating desk in the operating room significantly reduces mortality. It was recalled back to the work of Semmelweis, who came so late in his honor.
