Ignaz Semmelweis

What if something as simple as washing your hands could stop people from dying? That's the big idea from Ignaz Semmelweis. Imagine tiny invisible germs that move from one person to another on your hands — he discovered how dangerous that was for new mothers in the 1800s.

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865) was a Hungarian doctor working in mid-1800s Vienna at the Vienna General Hospital. He noticed many new mothers in the doctors' ward were getting a deadly illness called childbed fever far more often than in the midwives' ward. He found a link: doctors often came straight from autopsies and carried harmful particles on their hands.

In 1847 Semmelweis asked doctors and students to wash their hands before examining mothers — and deaths dropped dramatically. Many colleagues did not believe him because germs were not yet known, so he struggled for acceptance. Later, when germ theory and antiseptic methods were proven, people realized his simple rule saved countless lives. Today handwashing is a basic lifesaving habit — and every time you wash your hands you follow Semmelweis's lesson.