Which physician required medical students to wash their hands in chlorinated lime water before attending births to protect puerperal fever?

• A. Ignaz Semmelweis
• B. Edward Jenner
• C. Louis Pasteur
• D. Joseph Lister

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that hand hygiene can stop the transmission of infection in a maternity setting. Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that puerperal fever was far more deadly in the clinic run by physicians and medical students who performed autopsies than in the clinic run by midwives. He proposed that unseen cadaver particles on the hands were being carried to women in labor, causing the infections. By requiring medical staff to wash their hands in a chlorinated lime solution between autopsy work and attending births, mortality from puerperal fever dropped dramatically. This stark result showed, before the germ theory was widely accepted, that disinfecting hands could prevent disease transfer in a hospital setting and helped pave the way for antiseptic practices in medicine. The other figures mentioned contributed to related ideas—Jenner with vaccination, Pasteur with germ theory, and Lister with antiseptic surgery—but Semmelweis specifically linked handwashing to preventing puerperal fever in childbirth.