Imaging saving lives with a simple habit – and being denied. Semmelweis’s discovery ones ignored, now priced, still affects our lifes. Ignaz Semmelweis, XIX-century doctor, discovered that hands hygiene helps to reduce infection.
Semmelweis was a Hungarian obstetrician who worked in Viennance hospital.
He observed that hygiene could have been the answer for high morbidity among young mothers in his hospital ward. He started the new procedure based on washing hands before examining women after delivery. However, the same procedure was rejected by scientific environment.
Remembering Semmelweis is crucial to understanding scientific progress. That’s why we should stay open – minded as long as we are healthcare professionals.
XIX – century scientific environment had no solution for puerperal fever.
It was known as a condition that couldn’t be treated. Doctors were hopeless against it. Semmelweis followed the idea that obstetricians have the impact on that. He discovered that women examined by doctors and medical students , who had come directly from body autopsies, died due to puerperal fever more frequent than others cared by midwives. He identified hand contamination as the key cause. That wasn’t just luck. His conclusions came from scientific thinking and determination.
He began searching for the most effective antiseptic substance. Semmelweis’s purpose was to eliminate the risk factor from obstetricians’ hands and to decrease morbidity of puerperal fever. Only after he had watched hygiene practices in midwives’ school did he feel inspired by this observation. Not until he had discovered calcium chloride water to be good enough for clearing hands did he decide to start the new hygiene procedure.
Hardly had he begun a new way for washing hands on his obstetrician ward when he met with obstacles. Doctors from the department refuced to follow the procedure saying, it was humiliating and unnecessary procedure. Today we can explain it by cognitive dissonance. Following the new procedure was like confession of causing deaths. And no doctor would be able to manage that.
Semmelweis didn’t consider any side – effects of a new antiseptic substance, including skin rashes in patients. Admittedly, that was a mistake. However, when we compare this symptom with maternal mortality for the most part we agree that a rash and itching are just an inconvenience.
The resistance to innovation stops development and is dangerous.
Semmelweis proved that his hygiene procedures reduced maternal mortality from 30% to less than 10%. Nowadays we know that such ignorance is deadly. In conclusion it should be noted that Semmelweis’s discovery made him the first innovator in medicine. In fact, his contributions still affect our lives.
