Final answer:
Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered the correlation between doctors conducting autopsies and the spread of puerperal fever in maternity wards. He introduced handwashing with chlorinated lime water, significantly reducing maternal mortality rates. His work laid the groundwork for the acceptance of germ theory and the practice of antiseptics in medicine.
Step-by-step explanation:
The doctor who correlated infections with doctors moving from autopsy to the maternity ward was Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. He observed that medical students who performed autopsies and then examined pregnant women without washing their hands contributed to the spread of puerperal fever, leading to a high mortality rate among mothers. Semmelweis encouraged stringent handwashing with chlorinated lime water, which drastically reduced the mortality rate from 18% to 2%, demonstrating the effectiveness of hand hygiene in preventing disease transmission.
Despite his significant contributions, Semmelweis's work was initially dismissed because it contradicted the medical norms of the time. It was not until later, with the work of Dr. Joseph Lister, Robert Koch, and Louis Pasteur, that the medical community began to understand the germ theory of disease and the importance of sterility in preventing infections.