# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/ignaz-semmelweis
# Generated: 2026-08-31T17:36:49.782Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/ignaz-semmelweis"
name: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
slug: "ignaz-semmelweis"
description: "He proved that doctors washing their hands could cut maternal death rates from 18% to under 2%, and the medical establishment mocked him for it. Semmelweis died in an asylum at 47, beaten by guards, decades before germ theory made his work common sense."
tagline: "Hungarian physician, early pioneer of antiseptic procedures (1818–1865)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Borsos_%26_Doctor_Semmelweis_Ign%C3%A1c_cropped.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
category:
  name: "Doctors"
  slug: "doctors"
profileType:
  name: "Doctor"
  slug: "doctor"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1818-07-01"
deathDate: "1865-08-13"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           61.19
  momentum:             0
  historical:           26.156616
  currentAttention:     7.416666666666668
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  60
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: 55
tags:
  - name: "Doctors"
    slug: "doctors"
  - name: "Doctor"
    slug: "doctor"
  - name: "Medicine"
    slug: "medicine"
  - name: "19th Century"
    slug: "19th-century"
sources:
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    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
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    title: "Wikipedia"
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    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
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    title: "اجناتس سيملفيس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "ایقناز سمل‌ویس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "İqnas Zemmelveys"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ιγκνάτς Σέμελβαϊς"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignace Philippe Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
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    title: "Ignaz Semmelweis"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "أجناتس سيملفيس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician of German descent working at Vienna General Hospital when he noticed that doctors' wards had three times the childbed fever mortality of midwives' wards. In 1847, he proposed hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions — maternal mortality plummeted from 18% to less than 2%. He published his findings in 1861, but the medical community rejected them outright; he could offer no theoretical explanation for why disinfection worked, and some doctors took offense at the implication they were unclean. By 1865, increasingly outspoken and seemingly unraveling, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. He was beaten by guards and died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand, possibly caused by the beating. Only after Louis Pasteur confirmed germ theory and Joseph Lister adopted hygienic methods did the world recognize what Semmelweis had seen.