In the mid-19th century, a silent, unseen killer stalked the maternity wards of Europe, claiming the lives of countless new mothers.

Clarice Feldman - . It was a terrifying mystery, striking down women with a virulent disease known as childbed fever. - Ancient history - Ancient Whispers 

Yet, in the bustling wards of a Vienna hospital in 1847, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis was about to challenge the very foundations of medical understanding and, in doing so, revolutionize patient care forever.
Semmelweis observed a stark and horrifying difference between two maternity clinics: one where doctors and medical students, who often came directly from performing autopsies, delivered babies, and another staffed by midwives, where mortality rates from childbed fever were significantly lower. 

• Through meticulous observation and a leap of intuition, he hypothesized that "cadaverous particles" from the dissection room were being unknowingly transferred on the hands of medical personnel to the birthing mothers, causing the deadly infection. 
• This idea, predating the widespread acceptance of germ theory, was a radical departure from the prevailing medical beliefs of the time...

...Semmelweis's groundbreaking discovery was met with scorn and ridicule by the medical establishment. 

The notion that respected physicians could be the unwitting carriers of disease was deeply offensive to their pride and challenged the accepted norms of the era....