Editing Ignaz Semmelweis (section)

===Theory of cadaverous poisoning===

Semmelweis' breakthrough occurred in 1847, following the death of his good friend [[Jakob Kolletschka]], who had been accidentally poked with a student's scalpel while performing a [[Autopsy|''post mortem'' examination]]. Kolletschka's autopsy showed a [[pathology]] similar to that of the women who were dying from puerperal fever. Semmelweis immediately proposed a connection between [[cadaver]]ic contamination and puerperal fever.{{sfn|Lane|Blum|Fee|2010|pp=}}

He proposed that he and the medical students carried "cadaverous particles" on their hands{{efn-ua|Semmelweis's reference to "cadaverous particles" were (in German) "''an der Hand klebende Cadavertheile''"{{sfn|Benedek|1983|page=95}}}} from the autopsy room to the patients they examined in the First Obstetrical Clinic. This explained why the student [[Midwife|midwives]] in the Second Clinic, who were not engaged in autopsies and had no contact with corpses, saw a much lower mortality rate.

The [[germ theory of disease]] had not yet been accepted in Vienna. Thus, Semmelweis concluded some unknown "cadaverous material" caused childbed fever. He instituted a policy of using a solution of chlorinated lime ([[calcium hypochlorite]]) for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients. He did this because he found that this chlorinated solution worked best to remove the putrid smell of infected autopsy tissue, and thus perhaps destroyed the causal "poisonous" or contaminating "cadaveric" agent hypothetically being transmitted by this material.  The result was the mortality rate in the First Clinic declined 90% and was then comparable to that in the Second Clinic. The mortality rate in April 1847, before the new [[hand washing]] procedures were instituted, was 18.3%. The new procedures started in mid-May leading to lower rates:  June 2.2%, July 1.2%, and August 1.9%.  In two months in the year following this discovery, for the first time since the introduction of anatomical orientation, the death rate was zero.{{sfn|Ataman|Vatanoğlu-Lutz|Yıldırım|2013|pp=35–39}}