I
N THE CONTEXT OF INCREASING POLARIZED OPINIONS ABOUT medicine, expertise, and what those things mean, I thought I’d share one of the rather amazing
stories of a hero of modern medicine.
Ignaz Semmelweis, MD,
practiced as a gynecological surgeon in Vienna in the mid 19th Century. He’s now referred to as “the savior of mothers.” But what about how he gained this honorific? He is one of the early practitioners who designed a prospective study design where he measured results directly, something rare in
his day. Ignas observed that on some units the mortality rates for new mothers of “puerperal” infections reached 30%. Some versions of history noted that nurse midwife units had lower mortality rates due to handwashing. Other versions of history noted that the worst mortality rates were on units where medical students came directly from cadaver labs without washing their hands. Other descriptions noted that the prestige of the individual surgeon of the that day related to how dirty his surgical gown was. The ethos of the surgeons had not included handwashing because no one could “see” germs. Whichever version is more accurate, Ignaz had a realization that perhaps washing hands between births and exams might reduce
infection rates. He developed a simple solution for handwashing that ended up being anti-bacterial, and showed that by washing © by Gregory P Brown
hands and wearing clean surgical gowns, the infections could be cut by half. What an amazing finding! No antibiotics back then, so this saved a
either, because he accused his local colleagues of being “murderers”
lot of mothers’ lives.
by failing to engage in handwashing.
How did the medical establishment respond to his data?
Local physicians and his wife believed he was literally losing his mind
Interestingly, in certain areas of Europe, doctors began to follow his practice. But in Vienna, local fellow professionals found his ideas laughable because no one could see the bacteria [we can’t see it so it isn’t real]. His own abrasive personality didn’t help in his acceptance
to be so obsessed with this, and had him committed to a mental asylum in 1865, where he died 14 days later due to injuries from being beaten by guards when he tried to escape. Only after Louis Pasteur later developed the germ theory of disease was there a theoretical understanding of how Semmelweis’ work could be
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