The Semmelweis home in Budapest is now a museum of medical history - including early surgical instruments such as bone saws, curettes, birth stools, foot operated dental drills, etc. Semmelweis, a 19th century Hungarian doctor, connected puerperal sepsis (septicemia following childbirth) to the fact that physicians went from the autopsy rooms to the birthing rooms without washing their hands. When he implemented stringent handwashing, the incidence of the usually-fatal illness was lowered from 30% of births to as low as 1%. Unfortunately, his findings were ignored by the medical community until Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease.
Today Semmelweis is honored by a University which bears his name.
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