1 | It is not certain whether a cut in Semmelweis' finger at the time he entered the asylum led to his death from puerperal fever, or maybe this was just conjecture on the part of historians. | |
2 | He urged fellow surgeons to wash themselves, put on clean clothes and refrain from deliveries for 48 hours after coming into contact with a case of puerperal fever. | |
3 | Otherwise known as puerperal fever, it was an infection which followed childbirth and resulted in miserable and agonizing deaths for thousands of women every year. | |
4 | Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, discovered in 1847 that the occurrence of childbed fever was drastically reduced if doctors delivering babies washed their hands. | |
5 | As Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner wrote in Superfreakonomics, PF was a classic medical mystery that helped change our understanding of biology and behavior. |