An executioner might as well manicure his nails before chopping off a head".In 1844, Ignaz Semmelweis was appointed assistant lecturer in the First Obstetric Division of the Vienna General Hospital (Allgemeines Krankenhaus), where medical students received their training. Working without knowledge of Holmes essay, Semmelweis noticed his wards 16% mortality rate from fever was substantially higher than the 2% mortality rate in the Second Division, where midwifery students were trained. Semmelweis also noticed that puerperal fever was rare in women who gave birth before arriving at the hospital. Semmelweis noted that doctors in First Division performed autopsies each morning on women who had died the previous day, but the midwives were not required or allowed to perform such autopsies. He made the connection between autopsies and puerperal fever after a colleague, Jakob Kolletschka, died of sepsis after accidentally cutting his hand while performing an autopsy. Semmelweis began experimenting with various cleansing agents and, from May 1847, ordered all doctors and students working in the First Division wash their hands in chlorinated lime solution before starting ward work, and later before each vaginal examination. The mortality rate from puerperal fever in the division fell from 18% in May 1847 to less than 3% in June–November of the same year. While his results were extraordinary, he was treated with skepticism and ridicule (see Response to Semmelweis).
Other notables include African-American poet Phillis Wheatley (1784), British housekeeping authority Isabella Beeton, and American author Jean Webster in 1916 died of puerperal fever.In Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol, it is implied that both Scrooges mother and younger sister perished from this condition, explaining the characters animosity towards his nephew Fred and also his poor relationship with his own father. See also
Postpartum confinement, a traditional practice after childbirth

References
Further reading
Chaim W, Burstein E (August 2003). "Postpartum infection treatments: a review". Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy (review). 4 (8): 1297–313. doi:10.1517/14656566.4.8.1297. PMID 12877638. S2CID 26781321. French L (August 2003). "Prevention and treatment of postpartum endometritis". Current Womens Health Reports (review). 3 (4): 274–9. PMID 12844449. Calhoun BC, Brost B (June 1995). "Emergency management of sudden puerperal fever". Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America (review). 22 (2): 357–67. doi:10.1016/S0889-8545(21)00185-6. PMID 7651676. == External links ==