From the archive · Why evidence needs a record · Issue 00
Right, and not believed
Handwashing cut maternal deaths almost tenfold within weeks. It took medicine decades to accept it.
Vienna, 1847
Vienna General Hospital had two maternity clinics. Women begged not to be admitted to the first, run by doctors and medical students, where far more mothers died of childbed fever than in the second, run by midwives.
Ignaz Semmelweis suspected the students were carrying something from the autopsy room to the delivery room. In May 1847 he required them to wash their hands in chlorinated lime. In April, 18.3% of mothers in the First Clinic had died. In June the figure was 2.2%, and in July 1.2%.
He was right, but for years he did not publish. When he did, in 1861, his book was angry and hard to test, and colleagues rejected it. He died in 1865. Acceptance came only after germ theory explained why he had been right.
His story is the reason Evinca publishes a record for every honor. Good work that cannot be read, checked and questioned is too easily lost.
Being right was not enough. It had to be readable.
Evidence Passport
- What changed
- Handwashing in chlorinated lime between autopsies and examining mothers.
- What was measured
- Monthly maternal deaths in the First Clinic.
- Result
- 18.3% in April 1847 → 2.2% in June and 1.2% in July.
- Limits
- Historical monthly figures from a single clinic, with no control for other changes. The cause was not understood at the time.
Sources
- Ignaz Semmelweis: clinic data and timeline (Wikipedia, citing Semmelweis 1861)
- Ignaz Semmelweis, Scientist of the Day (Linda Hall Library)
An editorial feature about published work. The people named did not apply to Evinca, were not reviewed by us, and are not Evinca honorees.