4) A hospital in Vienna noted that many of their female patients were dying of "childbed fever" after they had given
birth in the hospital. The rates of this fever were much higher in the hospital than they were for women who had given
birth at a different clinic. In fact, 10% of the women at the hospital contracted fever compared to 4% at the clinic.
Ignatz Semmelweis thought that the fever was being transmitted on the hands of doctors when they went from the
He asked the doctors to wash their hands and the number of cases of "childbed fever"
morgue to examine women.
He also noted that a doctor contracted the same fever after he cut himself with a scalpel that had been
were reduced.
used on an autopsy.
Semmelweis concluded that the fever was caused by some element that could be transferred from person to person.
REASONING: If fever is something that could be transferred from person to person, then...