Ignaz Semmelweis and the Offense of Simple Obedience

In 1847, a young Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis made a discovery that should have revolutionized medicine overnight. At Vienna General Hospital, mothers were dying of childbed fever at alarming rates. Semmelweis identified the cause: doctors were moving straight from autopsies to delivering babies without washing their hands. His prescription was breathtakingly simple — wash with a chlorine solution before examining patients.…