The General Hospital had two maternity wards, divided by class: in the first, elite patients received care from physicians and medical students; in the second ward, lower classes were attended to by midwives. Semmelweis monitored the two clinics and found that, to his surprise, the death rate was far higher in the first ward than in the second. Fully 13 percent of women attended to by medical staff died, while just 2 percent of women with midwives did.
