Professor Semmelweis is the savior of mothers (on the occasion of the 200th birth anniversary of I. Semmelweis) (1818-1865)

The paper provides a brief biography of the famous Hungarian physician and scientist, I. Semmelweis, who lived in the 19th century and devoted his life to fight against nosocomial obstetric infection that claimed the lives of more than half of parturient women and was called puerperal fever. Long before the discoveries of Pasteur and Lister, not knowing the nature of sepsis, I. Semmelweis struggled against the entry of infection into the birth canal by washing the hands, followed by disinfection with a chlorinated lime solution, and thus achieved a substantial decline in death rates. Unfortunately, the medical community of the day was unable to appreciate the flashes of genius of Semmelweis; the huge opportunities that opened up in medicine and surgery were missed; antiseptics were introduced into medicine only 20years later. Only after his death, physicians worldwide recognized his merits and immortalized the memory of their great colleague, writing the "Savior of Mothers" on his monument. The discovery of I. Semmelweis assumed its right place in the history of surgery and medicine.

I. Semmelweis, biography, antiseptics, postpartum infection, hospital-acquired fever, sepsis