Semmelweis and Childbed Fever: the Scientific Method at Work

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Semmelweis and Childbed Fever: the Scientific Method at Work

Learning Target: SC.10.11.10.01 Designs a scientific investigation to answer an original question ✓Identify examples of scientific investigations ✓Identify each step of the scientific method Mini-lesson One Semmelweis and Childbed Fever: The Scientific Method at Work The Question It is the year 1847. A Hungarian physician working in Vienna, Ignaz Semmelweis, makes an interesting observation. Rich Viennese women who give birth in his hospital and receive the finest care from highly trained physicians are dying from childbed fever in far greater numbers than poor women who give birth in a nearby birthing center run by midwives. Why is the death rate four times as high in the hospital compared to the birthing center? The Hypothesis Semmelweis notices that the hospital physicians travel from patient to patient without changing their smocks or washing up. The blood on their clothes and body signifies that their services are in high demand. Neither he nor his fellow doctors know at the time that disease is spread by microscopic pathogens. But Semmelweis begins to suspect that bloody clothes and hands may in some way be responsible for the childbed fever deaths. He decides to change his behavior. We can state his hypothesis as follows: If I clean up before delivering a child, then the mother will be less likely to fall ill and die. The Experiment Semmelweis begins to wash his hands in chlorine solution between patients and prior to delivering babies. The results are dramatic: deaths from childbed fever among his patients falls from thirteen percent to two percent. _____________ Semmelweis eventually returns to Hungary and replicates his experiment in another hospital. The results are the same. He sets up controlled studies of the effects of hand and instrument washing on patient survival and publishes his findings, which, unfortunately, were not accepted by many of his fellow doctors. Tasks Create a Circle Map which describes the scientific method. Create a Flow Map which shows the process Semmelweis used to lower the death rate from childbed fever among his patients..

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C Semmelweisâ•Žs 19Th-Century Cure for Deadly Childbed Fever Ignored
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Case Studies Skills Practiced
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Ignaz Semmelweis
Dr. Semmelweis The “Savior of Mothers” he need for hand washing, at home; however those that as obvious as it may be were taken to the hospitals due Ttoday, was not recognized to poverty, illegitimacy, or as a means of disease prevention birth complications, suffered a before the middle 1800’s. shocking mortality rate of 25 to 30 percent. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, called the Semmelweis was not the first to "savior of mothers", made an make the connection of important discovery in 1847. He iatrogenic (doctor induced) proved statistically that the disease associated with child By Jay Hardy, CLS, SM (ASCP) incidence of puerperal fever, birth. In 1795, Alexander also known as childbed fever Gordon of Aberdeen, Scotland could be drastically cut by use of suggested that the fevers were hand washing standards for infectious processes, and that doctors and nurses in obstetrical physicians were the carrier, and Jay Hardy is the founder and clinics. president of Hardy Diagnostics. After studying microbiology at Puerperal fever, California State Universities at which can lead to a Fullerton and Long Beach, he more serious completed his Medical septicemia, is now Technology internship at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. known to be caused by either Group A The company began in 1980, or Group B shortly after Hardy served as a Streptococcus. Medical Technologist and microbiologist at Goleta Valley At that time in Hospital in California. Europe, most women delivered It was not uncommon to have a mortality rate of up to 30% in the obstetrical wards of Europe in the mid 19th century.
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