Hand Hygiene History

Hand Hygiene History

The three fathers of handwashing

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis Louis Pasteur

Hand Hygiene History

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes advocated hand washingto prevent childbed fever. He was horrified by theprevalence in American hospitals of this fever whichhe believed to be an infectious disease passed topregnant women by the hands of doctors. His ideaswere met with disdain.

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Hand Hygiene History

In Vienna in 1846, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was workingin maternity wards where he observed the mortalityrate in the wards cared for by physicians and medicalstudents were as much as three times greater thanthose wards where care was provided by midwives.

Semmelweis found that the students were comingstraight from the pathology lab without washing theirhands. He believed that they were carrying infectionsfrom the lab to their patients. When he implementeda handwashing protocol, his mortality rate droppedto less than 1%.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

Hand Hygiene History

Louis Pasteur contributed to the germ theory ofdisease, developed pasteurization, and in 1879debated his ideas at the Academy of Medicinein Paris.

Louis Pasteur

Hand Hygiene Today

According to the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

“Handwashing is the single most importantmeans of preventing the spread of infection.”