Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis

Semmelweis, Ignaz Philipp (1818–65), Hungarian obstetrician. He was the first doctor to use antiseptic methods in childbirth, after his discovery that puerperal fever was transmitted by obstetricians who had failed to thoroughly clean their hands after performing autopsies on mothers who had died of the disease and then had made examinations of living mothers.

See also: Obstetrics.