Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th century Hungarian obstetrician credited with championing the invaluable practice of ... hand washing! Semmelweis worked in one of the Vienna General Hospital's maternity wards in the 1840s. He was trying to figure out why some new mothers were dying of a mysterious illness when one of his friends died of an infection after being cut with a scalpel during an autopsy. Semmelweis put two and two together, and realized doctors weren't doing anything to clean their hands when they went between patients -- like, say, a corpse and a woman in labor. Semmelweis made doctors to wash their hands between autopsies and other examinations and, wouldn't you know it, the death rate went down. His colleagues at the time didn't believe his theories, but we are eternally grateful for them today.
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