semmelweis

So, ignoring him actually advanced science;-) Contemporary reaction to Ignaz Semmelweis Semmelweis's critics claimed his findings lacked scientific reasoning.

Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that it's a good idea to wash your hands before carrying out surgery.

Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings.

In hindsight, Semmelweis opponents made a great error by rejecting a theory which had strong empirical evidence just because it didn't have a theoretical underpinning.

But: > In fact, Semmelweis was warning against all decaying organic matter, not just against a specific contagion that originated from victims of childbed fever themselves.

At this crucial stage, Semmelweis himself had published nothing.

Ignaz Semmelweis came up with his germ theory after observing a strong correlation of infections with whether people performing certain tasks in hospitals washed their hands or not.

Ignaz Semmelweis did not come to broader attention.

I am not necessarily disagreeing with you about whether or not Semmelweis could have been more tactful - I don't know enough to really comment (e.g.

Had semmelweis provided a good scientific explanation, some of his opponents would have probably conceded defeat, but I'm quite sure others would have found something else to latch on to.

Simpson surmised that the English obstetrical literature must be totally unknown in Vienna, or Semmelweis would have known that the English had long regarded childbed fever as contagious and would have employed chlorine washing to protect against it.

I'd heard about Ignaz Semmelweis from a book I read and to think less than 200 years ago you would go to a hospital and they didn't bother to wash their hands between patients?

Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Homes who advocated hand washing during childbirth to prevent puerperal fever and were treated with "disdain and hostility" by their own colleagues per historical accounts.

And: > Indeed, initial responses to Semmelweis's findings were that he had said nothing new.

This misunderstanding, and others like it, occurred partly because Semmelweis's work was known only through secondhand reports written by his colleagues and students.

Semmelweis used what we call chlorine bleach, Lister carbolic acid (dangerous stuff).