In 1818 people lived in a world of dying women, the vast majority of which were completely healthy. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of "childbed fever." That diagnosis was actually bacterial infections of the female reproductive tract following childbirth or miscarriage. A doctor's daily routine in the early 1800s began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands.

Enter Dr. Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis he began to connect the dots and drew an associate with autopsy examinations with the resultant infection and death in these mothers. He began washing with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lo…