Arpan K. Banerjee
Solihull, England

Museums on medical themes are uncommon and generally scattered worldwide. Budapest features the Semmelweis Museum, dedicated to one of Hungary’s greatest physicians and the history of medical advances in Hungary. It is the birthplace and childhood home of Ignaz Semmelweis, born there on July 1, 1818. His father had a grocer’s shop and cafe in the basement of the building, and the family lived upstairs in the flat. The house was not far from the Chain Bridge, which was built in 1849 and was the first to link the cities Buda and Pest from the two sides of the Danube.

In 1837, Semmelweis went to Vienna to study medicine, although he had initially started law. After graduating as a doctor in 1844, he could not secure a job in internal medicine, so he turned to obstetrics instead. Semmelweis noticed high rates of infection (puerperal fever) and mortality during childbirth in the clinics in Vienna and set about investigating why this was the case. He noticed that mothers treated by midwives had better outcomes than those treated by medical men, and he surmised that this might be due to infections transmitted by doctors and students who also attended autopsies.

At this time, the germ theory of disease was not known, so when Semmelweis suggested that personnel dealing with obstetric patients should wash their hands with chlorinated lime disinfectant, he was met with marked opposition and derision from the professional establishment. In 1850, he returned to Pest and worked in a small hospital as an obstetrician where his methods obtained excellent results with low rates of puerperal sepsis. The medical establishment in Hungary and beyond remained unconvinced.

The constant opposition to Semmelweis’ ideas and his lack of diplomatic skills took its toll, and he had a nervous breakdown. He was admitted to a mental asylum, where he was beaten, developed an infection, and died on August 13, 1865 at the age of forty-seven.

Semmelweis was clearly ahead of his time. His ideas about asepsis predated Louis Pasteur who went on to prove the germ theory of disease, and British surgeon Joseph Lister who later adopted aseptic techniques during surgery to prevent infections.

One hundred years after Semmelweis’s death, a museum of medical history was established in 1965 in the Meindl House building in Budapest where Semmelweis was born. The ground floor hosts temporary exhibitions on medical historical themes. The first floor has an exhibition about Semmelweis, displaying some of his furniture, books, manuscripts, and other memorabilia. The rest of the museum is devoted to the history of medicine in Hungary, including the first X-rays taken in Hungary following Röntgen’s discovery.

The museum is full of fascinating exhibits and is also a homage to one of Hungary’s greatest sons. Semmelweis was an important figure in medical history whose pioneering work on antiseptic procedures have benefited millions of women and children worldwide by making childbirth safer in the modern world.

The oldest medical school in Hungary, founded in 1769, is today named after Semmelweis. In 2023, the critically acclaimed biographical film Semmelweis, directed by Lajos Koltai, was nominated for an Academy Award in the International Feature Film category.