1818 – 1865
Ignaz Semmelweis was born in 1818 in Budapest. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and specialized in obstetrics. While working at two maternity clinics in Vienna, he observed drastically different maternal mortality rates due to puerperal fever at the two sites. While looking into factors that could influence these differences, he noticed that medical personnel on the site with the higher mortality rates performed autopsies between deliveries while personnel at the site with the lower mortality rate did not. Since this was pre-germ theory (before bacteria were discovered), his explanation was that‚ cadaverous particles from the autopsies were responsible for the higher mortality rates. He introduced cleaning procedures with calcium hypochloride to get rid of the putrid smell from the autopsies, which led to a significant reduction in maternal mortality. Today, we know that this procedure reduced bacterial contaminations that caused maternal infections. Semmelweis is one of the pioneers of evidence-based medicine. He made observations, analyzed the data and introduced measures based on data – propelling medicine forward. During his life time he was met with scepticism and adversity and he died an early death at age 47, ironically from an infection after being admitted to an asylum for the insane. In a truly Austrian fashion, the value of his work and discoveries were only acknowledged posthumously.