Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (originally Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis) (July 1, 1818 - August 13, 1865) was the Hungarian-Austrian physician who demonstrated that puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") was contagious and that its incidence could be drastically reduced by enforcing appropriate hand-washing behavior by medical care-givers. He made this discovery in 1847 while head of the Maternity Department of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital.

Early history

Semmelweis was born on July 1, 1818 in Tabán, an old commercial sector of Buda, the fifth child of a prosperous shopkeeper of German origin. He received his elementary education at the Catholic Gymnasium of Buda, then completed his schooling at the University of Pest from 1835 to 1837. Semmelweis' father wanted him to become a military advocate in the service of the Austrian bureaucracy, but when Semmelweis travelled to Vienna in the fall of 1837 to enroll in its law school he was instead attracted to medicine. Apparently without parental opposition, he enrolled in the medical school instead.

Related Topics:
July 1 - 1818 - Tabán - Buda - University of Pest - 1835 - 1837

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Semmelweis returned to Pest after his first year and continued his studies at the local university from 1839-1841. He moved to the Second Vienna Medical School in 1841, however, displeased by the backward conditions in the school at Pest. This school combined laboratory and bedside medicine and became one of the most prominent centers of medicine for the next century. In the last two years some of his teachers included Carl von Rokitansky, Josef Skoda and Ferdinand von Hebra. Semmelweis completed his botanically-oriented dissertation early in 1844 and remained in Vienna after graduation to repeat a two-month course in practical midwifery. He receiving a Magister degree in the subject. He also completed some surgical training and spent almost fifteen months (October 1844 - February 1846) with Skoda learning diagnostic and statistical methods. Afterward he became assistant in the First Obstetrical Clinic of the Vienna General Hospital, the university's teaching hospital.

Related Topics:
Pest - 1839 - 1841 - Second Vienna Medical School - Carl von Rokitansky - Josef Skoda - Ferdinand von Hebra - Botanically - 1844 - Midwife - October - February - 1846

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