Ignaz Semmelweis

“Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely,” by P.J. O’Rourke, represents how being clean can impact life. Ignaz Semmelweis believed it as well. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian obstetrician who presented his ideas to the medical community in the mid-1800s. With degrees in midwifery, surgical training, and diagnostic and statistical methods, Ignaz scored a job easily at a hospital in Vienna while taking care of a wife and two children. Semmelweis uncovered the relationship between maternal death and puerperal fever, took many responsible risks to introduce his concept the medical society, and illuminated the importance to simply wash one's hands.

At the First Obstetric Clinic in Vienna, maternal death was no secret,

Semmelweis had a theory, he would risk his job to prove it correct. As the main assistant to the hospital director, Ignaz directed the doctors and students to wash their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime before assisting the mothers in labor. Immediately, the death rates went down to less than 2% (“Science and Its Times”, 2000). When Ignaz released the results, he received mixed reactions. A few doctors stood by him, but the others seemed to believe that Semmelweis was deeming them responsible for the many unnecessary deaths. Eventually, the quarrel was too much for Semmelweis to handle, and he “retired” from his position (“Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis”, 2017). Ignaz would not give up. He left Vienna and returned to his hometown of Budapest where he introduced his antisepsis ideas to the physicians at the St. Rochus Hospital. Semmelweis published his findings in The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, even going as far as to say, “Your teaching... is based on the dead bodies of lying-in women slaughtered through ignorance… I denounce you before God and the world as murderers.” Time went on, and his voice continued to be silenced by his foe, until in 1865 Semmelweis was committed to an insane asylum where he died 14 days later (“Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis”,