SEMMELWEISS, IGNAZ PHILIPP (1818-1865) , Hun garian physician, was born at Buda on July I, 1818, and was edu cated at the universities of Pest and Vienna, where he attracted the attention of Joseph Skoda and Carl Rokitansky. He graduated M.D. at Vienna in 1844, and was then appointed assistant pro fessor in the maternity department, under Johann Klein. In Klein's time the deaths in this department from what was then known as "puerperal fever" became portentous. The death of a colleague from a dissection wound suggested to Semmelweiss an identity with the fatal puerperal cases, and the beginning of a scientific pathology of septicaemia was made. The students often came to the lying-in wards from the dissecting-room, their hands cleansed with soap and water only. In May 1847 Semmel weiss prescribed ablutions with chlorinated lime water; in that month the mortality stood at 12.24%, before the end of the year it had fallen to 3.04%, and in the second year to 1.27%. Skoda and other physicians were convinced by these results. Klein, how
ever, apparently blinded by jealousy and vanity, supported by other reactionary teachers, and aided by the disasters which then befell the Hungarian nation, drove Semmelweiss from Vienna in 1849. Fortunately, in the following year Semmelweiss was ap pointed obstetric physician at Pest in the maternity department, then as terribly afflicted as Klein's clinic had been ; and during his six years' tenure of office he succeeded, by antiseptic methods, in reducing the mortality to 0.85%. He died on Aug. 17, 1865, from a disastrous wound of the right hand, a victim of the very disease for the relief of which he had already sacrificed health and fortune.