Semmelweis is considered

not only the father of hand

hygiene, but his
intervention is also a model
of epidemiologically driven
strategies to prevent
WORLD HEALTH ORG.

infection.
 INFORMATION
Names: Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis
Born: July 1, 1818, Buda, Hungary, Austrian Empire
Died August 13, 1865, Vienna, Austria

A German-Hungarian physician, who discovered the cause of

puerperal (childbed) fever and introduced antisepsis into
medical practice. This work took place in the 1840s, while he
was Director of the maternity clinic at the Vienna General
Hospital in Austria.
 DISCOVERY
Educated at the universities of Pest and Vienna, Semmelweis received
his doctor’s degree from Vienna in 1844. Semmelweis proceeded to investigate
the cause of puerperal infection over the strong objections of his chief. He
concluded that students who came directly from the dissecting room to the
maternity ward carried the infection from mothers who had died of the disease
to healthy mothers. He ordered the students to wash their hands in a solution of
chlorinated lime before each examination. Under these, mortality rates in the
first division dropped from 18.27 to 1.27 percent, and in March and August of
1848 no woman died in childbirth in his division. The younger medical men in
Vienna recognized the significance of Semmelweis’ discovery and gave him all
possible assistance. His superior, on the other hand, was critical—not because
he wanted to oppose him but because he failed to understand him.
 WORKS
He worked for six years at the St. Rochus Hospital in Pest. An epidemic of
puerperal fever had broken out in the obstetrics department, and Semmelweis
was put in charge. His measures reduced the mortality rate. In Prague and
Vienna, the rate was still from 10 to 15 percent. In 1855 he was appointed
professor of obstetrics at the University of Pest. He married, had five children,
and developed his private practice. Vienna remained hostile toward him, and
the editor of the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift wrote that it was time to
stop the nonsense about the chlorine hand wash. In 1861 Semmelweis
published his principal work, Die Ätiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des
Kindbettfiebers (The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever). At a
conference of German physicians and natural scientists, most of the speakers—
including the pathologist Rudolf Virchow—rejected his doctrine.
 DEATH & RECOGNITION
The years of controversy gradually undermined his spirit. In 1865 he
suffered a breakdown and was taken to a mental hospital, when he started
to exhibit what was possibly the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. He died
due to the infection of a wound on his right hand, apparently the result of
an operation he had performed before being taken ill, from an infection of
Streptococcus, the very organism he had struggled against all his
professional life. Semmelweis’ doctrine was subsequently accepted by
medical science. His influence on the development of knowledge and
control of infection was hailed by Joseph Lister, the father of modern
antisepsis: “I think with the greatest admiration of him and his
achievement and it fills me with joy that at last he is given the respect
due to him.”
 HAND WASHING
In hospitals, antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria are wiped out by
the simple act of hand-washing. Until the late 1800s, surgeons did not
scrub up before surgery or even wash their hands between patients,
causing infections to be transferred from one patient to another.
Doctors and medical students routinely moved from dissecting corpses
to examining new mothers without first washing their hands, causing
death by puerperal or ‘childbed’ fever as a consequence. Through
vigorous statistical analysis, Semmelweis figured out where the
problem lay and introduced rigorous hand-washing rules in the
maternity ward. Deaths were drastically reduced and Semmelweis
became known as the ‘saviour of the mothers’.
 HAND WASHING
Apart from providing the first evidence that cleansing heavily contaminated
hands with an antiseptic agent can reduce nosocomial transmission of germs
more effectively than handwashing with plain soap and water, this approach
includes all the essential elements for a successful infection control
intervention: “recognize-explain-act”.
The 1980s represented a landmark in the evolution of concepts of hand
hygiene in health care. The first national hand hygiene guidelines were
published in the 1980s,followed by several others in more recent years in
different countries. In 1995 and 1996, the CDC/Healthcare Infection Control
Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) in the USA recommended that either
antimicrobial soap or a waterless antiseptic agent be used for cleansing hands
upon leaving the rooms of patients with multidrug-resistant pathogens.
 HAND WASHING
End of semmelweis
 Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid (now
known as phenol) to sterilize surgical instruments
and to clean wounds. Applying Louis Pasteur's
advances in microbiology Lister championed the
use of carbolic acid as an antiseptic, so that it
became the first widely used antiseptic in surgery.
WIKIPEDIA
 INFORMATION
Names: Baron Lister of Lyme Regis, Sir Joseph Lister, Baronet
Born: April 5, 1827, Upton, Essex, England
Died February 10, 1865, Walmar, Kent

British surgeon and medical scientist who was the founder

of antiseptic medicine and a pioneer in preventive
medicine. While his method, based on the use of
antiseptics, is no longer employed, his principle—that
bacteria must never gain entry to an operation wound—
remains the basis of surgery to this day. He was made
a baronet in 1883 and raised to the peerage in 1897.
 JOSEPH LISTER
(1827-1912)
MODIFIED AND A D VA N C E D THE
I D E A O F A N T I S E P S I S I N H E A LT H
CARE SETTINGS. AS A SURGEON,HE
WA S AWA R E O F T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S
FROM INFECTION OF WOUNDS
T H E R E F O R E , H E B E G A N S P R AY I N G
WOUNDS, SURGICAL INCISIONS AND
DRESSINGS WITH CARBOLIC ACID
(PHENOL), WHICH HAS BEEN
PROVEN EFFECTIVE IN REDUCING
O D O R A N D D E C AY I N S E WA G E . H I S
METHOD WA S ACCEPTED I N TO
COMMON PRACTICE.
 DISCOVER
 Antisepsis is the method of using chemicals, called antiseptics,
to destroy the germs that cause infections. It was developed by
Lister. He found a way to prevent infection in wounds during
and after surgery.
 He was the first to apply the science of Germ Theory to surgery.
 Lister's Antisepsis System is the basis of modern infection
control.
 His principles made surgery safe and continue to save countless
lives.
 19 TH
CENTURY
In the 19th century, even when an operation or treatment
had been successful, the patient often died from a host of
infection-related conditions like sepsis and gangrene.
Surgery was still a young profession when Lister decided to
study medicine in 1844. In 1864, while working at Glasgow
University as Professor of Surgery, Lister was introduced to
Pasteur’s germ theory of disease, and he decided to apply
it to the problem of surgical infections.
 ANTISEPTIC
He looked for ways to prevent germs from entering a
wound by creating a chemical barrier—which he called an
antiseptic—between the surgical wound and the
surroundings. The chemical he chose to use was carbolic
acid, which killed the germs on contact. Lister began to
develop his antiseptic techniques through experimentation
and clinical trials, regularly publishing his
findings. Reception to his theory was mixed.
 ACCEPTED
Because they didn't accept that germs caused infections,
many surgeons found the antiseptic system excessive and
unnecessarily complicated. As the number of surgery
related infections fell, the evidence that antisepsis worked
became irrefutable and it was widely accepted by surgeons
around the world. Lister even received Royal Approval
when he used his carbolic spray during a surgical
procedure on Queen Victoria.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
More fortunate than many pioneers, Lister saw the
almost universal acceptance of his principle during his
working life. He retired from surgical practice in 1893,
after the death of his wife in the previous year. Many
honours came to him. Created a baronet in 1883, he
was made Baron Lister of Lyme Regis in 1897 and
appointed one of the 12 original members of
the Order of Merit in 1902.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
He was a gentle, shy, unassuming man, firm in his
purpose because he humbly believed himself to be
directed by God. He was uninterested in social success
or financial reward. For some years before his death, he
was almost completely blind and deaf. Lister wrote no
books but contributed many papers to professional
journals. These are contained in The Collected Papers
of Joseph, Baron Lister, 2 vol. (1909).
 LINKS USED:

1. http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/brough
ttolife/people/ignazsemmelweis
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ignaz-
Semmelweis
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144018/
4. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-
Lister-Baron-Lister-of-Lyme-Regis
5. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-
stories/listers-antisepsis-system