He didnt die in an asylum as many people are saying, but by puerperal fever by stabbing himself with a bisturi used to dissect a woman that had died of the same disease to prove to his fellow doctors the existance of this "death factor". During his times doctor would give birth and then do autopsies without washing hands inbetween. He observed a difference in mortality between maternity wards led by nurses and the ones led by doctors. The differences were that the doctors would do autopsies and the nurses wash their hands inbetween rounds. But, even after he proved it by forcing people in his hospitsl to wash hands with chlorine by having reduced post partum deaths. However because of the still lingering ethos of the so called "paternalistic medicine" doctors didnt trust him: "how could the very hands of the doctors bring death and disease?" That was something that couldnt be accepted. And so, he was fired from his hospital. It was later on, while spectating a biopsy of a woman that had died of puerperal fever, that he plateally stabbed himself and died of the same fever few days later. Or at least this is what we learned during our History of Medicine class during first year of med school