Scientific Data Regarding Hand Hygiene Historical Perspective For generations, handwashing with soap and water has been considered a measure of personal hygiene (1). The concept of cleansing hands with an antiseptic agent probably emerged in the early 19th century. As early as 1822, a French pharmacist demonstrated that solutions containing chlorides of lime or soda could eradicate the foul odors associated with human corpses and that such solutions could be used as disinfectants and antiseptics (2). In a paper published in 1825, this phar- macist stated that physicians and other persons attending patients with contagious diseases would benefit from moist- ening their hands with a liquid chloride solution (2).In 1846, Ignaz Semmelweis observed that women whose babies were delivered by students and physicians in the First Clinic at the General Hospital of Vienna consistently had ahigher mortality rate than those whose babies were delivered by midwives in the Second Clinic (3). He noted that physi- cians who went directly from the autopsy suite to the obstet- rics ward had a disagreeable odor on their hands despite washing their hands with soap and water upon entering the obstetrics clinic. He postulated that the puerperal fever that affected so many parturient women was caused by “cadaver- ous particles” transmitted from the autopsy suite to the obstetrics ward via the hands of students and physicians. Per- haps because of the known deodorizing effect of chlorine com- pounds, as of May 1847, he insisted that students and physicians clean their hands with a chlorine solution between each patient in the clinic. The maternal mortality rate in the First Clinic subsequently dropped dramatically and remained low for years. This intervention by Semmelweis represents the first evidence indicating that cleansing heavily contaminated hands with an antiseptic agent between patient contacts may reduce health-care–associated transmission of contagious dis- eases more effectively than handwashing with plain soap and water. Click below link to read more ...... cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr5116.pdf —
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 12:17:06 +0000
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