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. that “I myself was the means of theory by writing, “Doctors are time, no hand washing was done carrying the infection to a great gentlemen, and gentlemen's before or after the physicians number of women.” hands are clean.” performed vaginal examinations on the expectant mothers. Then in 1842, Thomas Watson, The Hungarian born, Dr. Professor of Medicine in Semmelweiss, while working at He postulated that “cadaverous London, advised: "Wherever the Vienna General Hospital in particles” transmitted from the puerperal fever is rife, or when a Austria, discovered in 1847 that doctors hands after performing practitioner has attended any one hand washing with chlorinated autopsies was chiefly instance of it, he should use most lime solutions reduced the responsible for the loss of life in diligent ablution." Watson incidence of fatal puerperal fever the OB ward. recommended hand washing with chlorine solution and changes of clothing for obstetric attendants "to prevent the practitioner from becoming a vehicle of contagion and death between one patient and another." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., a famous American physician and poet, stated in 1843, that he would rather have his offspring be born in a stable than to receive the best help and be exposed to the “vapors of this pitiless disease” at the hands of doctors and nurses. from 12 percent to about 2 percent. Semmelweis' hypothesis that all that mattered was He came to this conclusion after cleanliness, was extreme at the observing that the incidence of time, and was largely ignored, puerperal fever was over six rejected, or openly ridiculed. times higher in women that had been attended to by physicians compared to Ignaz Semmelweis, 1818 - 1865 those that had been “When I look back upon the past, I can attended to by midwives only dispel the sadness which falls upon This accusation was often met or nurses at the hospital. me, by gazing into that happy future when with hostility from his fellow Only physicians the infection will be banished.” medical practiioners. One performed autopsies; - Semmelweiss prominent obstetrician and this was often done responded to Holmes and his in the morning. At that He was dismissed from the when Louis Pasteur developed hospital and subsequently had the germ theory of disease which difficulty finding employment as offered a theoretical explanation a medical doctor. for Semmelweis' findings. In 1879, Pasteur showed that Semmelweis was outraged by streptococcal bacteria could be the indifference of the medical found in the blood of women profession and began writing who had puerperal fever. open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European Today, Semmelweis is obstetricians; at times considered a pioneer of denouncing them as antiseptic procedures, due to his irresponsible murderers. discovery of the value of hand washing. “The Semmelweiss Reflex” Definition: Mob His story is behavior which occurs when a discovery of just one scientific fact is punished rather than more rewarded. example of how scientific discovery is often His contemporaries, including rejected by the established and his wife, believed he was losing narrow-minded thinking of the his mind, and in 1865, he was day. committed to an insane asylum. Sadly, Semmelweis died there Let us remember his story only 14 days later, possibly after whenever we are confronted being severely beaten by the with evidence that is contrary to hospital personnel. traditional and conventional “wisdom.” Semmelweis' hygienic practices only earned widespread Jay Hardy acceptance years after his death, HARDY DIAGNOSTICS .