How did Ignaz Semmelweis change the way you look at disease?
Semmelweis noticed that the death rates in mothers during
pregnancy was unusually high. He noticed that the doctors in his
hospital were going straight from examining diseased dead bodies in
the morgue to delivering babies, and thought that perhaps this
meant that they were transferring disease from the corpses to the
mothers. He suggested that all doctors thoroughly wash their hands
between patients, and almost immediately the death rate fell.
This was the first time that the idea of infectious disease
(passing disease via a pathogenic medium, i.e. bacteria and
viruses) was considered. before this, contracting diseases was put
down to chance.