Puerperal Fever In the late 1840s, Ignaz Semmelweis was a youngdoctor working in the maternity ward of aHungarian hospital andbecame aware of the high death rate among his patients. About 20%of the women under his and his colleagues’ care in “Division I” ofthe ward (that is, the division attended by physicians and malemedical students) died shortly after childbirth. This occurrencecame to be known as puerperal fever. Semmelweis noted that thisdeath rate was up to four to five times greater than that in”Division II” of the ward (the division attended by femalemidwifery students). Of note, personnel of Division I oftenperformed autopsies between delivering babies while personnel ofDivision II only remained in the maternity ward.
Semmelweis noticed that many of his colleagues did not washtheir hands between autopsies and delivery of newborns as they wentfrom one section of the hospital to the next and thought thatinfection could be carried from cadavers to healthy mothers. Hedecided to test this thought by requiring half of the Division Idoctors to wash their hands with chlorinated lime water prior toattending patients. The other half of Division I doctors wouldcontinue on with normal pre-labor practices. Mortality rates forthe doctors washing their hands with the chlorinated lime waterdropped to almost 1%. The mortality rates for the other doctorscontinued at the same rate of nearly 20%.
Analysis:The scientific method is a process used tosystematically find answers to questions. It begins withidentification of a problem based on observations of the worldaround us from which a hypothesis is formed. The scientific methodprovides an organized method for conducting an experiment andanalyzing experimental data to test the hypothesis.Use the fillableanswer sheet to answer questions about the experiment that helpedto determine the cause of puerperal fever
1.State the problem.
2.What was the hypothesis?
3.How was the hypothesis tested?
4.Which was the control group?
5. Which was the experimental group?
6.Should the hypothesis be accepted or rejected based on theexperiment? Why?
