Washing hands to prevent the spread of disease was recommended in 1844 to the doctors of the Vienna General Hospital by Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. Semmelweis had noticed that doctors would go straight from doing autopsies on those who died of puerperal fever to delivering babies and soon after the mothers would die of puerperal fever. Nearly 25 percent of all mothers giving birth in hospital maternity wards died of puerperal fever, with epidemics sometimes reaching 100 percent. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was ridiculed so much for his "hand-washing" suggestion that he was forced to leave Vienna and eventually died in...