Mondo Knows Facts
Semmelweis cut deaths by ordering handwashing
A Vienna doctor noticed that doctors arriving from the mortuary carried infection In 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis worked in a Vienna maternity ward where medical students, unlike midwives, went straight from autopsies to examinations. He required them to wash in chlorinated lime, and deaths from childbed fever fell sharply. His colleagues rejected the finding, and he died in an asylum in 1865. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: medicine, hygiene, vienna
Semmelweis cut deaths by ordering handwashing: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A Vienna doctor noticed that doctors arriving from the mortuary carried infection. The figure is taken from Wellcome Collection, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.