Ignaz Semmelweis a man of great success a Hungarian Scientist and a Physician was truly living at the scientific paramount (not the picture company) of the Austrian Empire where the Industrial Revolution was taking hold. With this, he held the capability of proposing ideas and theories which will not endanger him as seen with what happened to Galileo [1]. He as a man of science worked in the medical category of childbirth (Today known as Genealogy) and proposed the idea of handwashing as we know it.
Later in his life, he got such a sinister idea that was so out of the line that he single-handedly ended his own career which as you might have guessed this was the idea of handwashing. He said that using a chlorinated lime water solution (the OG soap which even foamed) helped reduce mother deaths, which commonly happened from pleural fever [2] to nearly 1 percent from 18. Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 2%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions (jealousy I guess). This resulted in Ignaz becoming even more outspoken (wrong step) and then this resulted in a nervous breakdown (whether he did have it is still disputed) which then resulted in him being sent to an asylum.
He was allegedly beaten by the guards at the asylum, and he died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating just because he preached handwashing. It is truly a sad story in terms of closed-mindedness. In the case of Galileo, he went into house arrest for life because he opposed the church but in the case of Ignaz, he was sent to asylum allegedly beaten and died as his right hand turned gangrenous and then was covered in pus, poisoning his body just in fourteen days. Even if he was not beaten, in the fourteen days following his admission to the asylum he could have easily received medical attention which he did not receive it. Many people still think that due to the lack of Ignaz’s publications on this matter of handwashing that he was not recognised thus ending his fate this way.
Only after the ideas proposed and experimented by Louis Pasteur [3] and others, Ignaz’s ideas were accepted and ended in the medical field accepting and forming the Germ Theory. Semmelweis’ death is a reminder of the dangers of closed-mindedness. His colleagues refused to listen to his ideas about handwashing, even though they were supported by clear evidence. As a result, many women died needlessly from puerperal fever.
Thank You
[1] He died in life imprisonment while at home because he said the sun in centre of the solar system which was against the church
[2] Pleural Fever was a common type of fever that happened to mothers shortly after they give birth and caused a high number of casualties
[3] Yes the term Pasteurisation is after his name
Images from Wikimedia Commons