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The Infographics Show, Why Doctor Who Discovered Hand Washing Ended Up In A Mental Institution

Why Doctor Who Discovered Hand Washing Ended Up In A Mental Institution

It's mid-1800s and a group of doctors surround a table which has splayed on it an opened

cadaver.

An audience of men of science watch in awe as those doctors remove organs from the body

and try to explain the cause of death.

This is a new age, a new era, but while some of those men are legends in their own right,

they're still pretty ignorant.

Here's why.

After the discectomy a man rushes in and tells those doctors that they should wash their

hands before returning to their hospitals.

It could save lives, he says.

“This is preposterous!” barks one doctor, “Why in God's name would one wash their

hands…get out of here you deluded imbecile.”

Welcome to the sad, wonderful and wacky world of how hand-washing got started.

You see, at the time, those doctors were in fact about to change the world.

They were champions in an era which could be called the medical enlightenment.

This was the time that surgeons were understanding the human body much better than ever before,

when illness and disease was no longer being blamed on a person having a “demonic sensibility”.

Opening up bodies was nothing new.

In fact, in the 17th century the Company of Surgeons in London would often dissect convicted

murders in public…after they'd been hanged of course.

London wasn't quite Westeros, although body-snatching was all the rage because those doctors and

surgeons needed more training.

These surgeons were like Kings at around the time of the 1850s.

Dissection was nothing new, but in London and all over Europe medical men were not just

seeing how the body worked, but they were now heading into the world of “pathological

anatomy”, meaning dissecting as a way of finding the cause of death.

So now imagine that one day some of the leading surgeons in the world are doing their thing

and in walks a man that tells them to wash their hands.

They think this guy is tripping, to use today's parlance, and laugh him out of the hospital.

This guy wasn't tripping at all, and in fact, we can thank him for changing the world.

We can thank him for saving countless lives, and that's why he is sometimes called “The

Savior of Mothers.”

It was the doctors who were ignorant and deluded.

We also bet that most of you guys have never even heard of this hero, how he changed the

world, but how he died so savagely.

We guarantee you, this is one of the best stories you've never heard.

The man we are talking about was one Ignaz Semmelweis and he was born on 1 July 1818

in what is now today's Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.

He got himself a medical degree and then focused on a branch of medicine called obstetrics.

If you don't know what that is, it's concerned with childbirth.

Ah ok, so this guy wasn't one of those heroic surgeons, you are thinking.

The answer is no.

Semmelweis actually went to work as an assistant professor at The First Obstetrical Clinic

of the Vienna General Hospital.

This was the year 1846, and the city of Vienna was a center of science and art.

At the time a lot of poor women or prostitutes were getting pregnant and then killing the

baby.

This is known as infanticide, and was quite common back then.

This clinic where our good doctor worked would actually take in pregnant women and even help

bring up the child.

This was the deal.

The hospital said, hey, come have your child here.

Our new doctors and nurses can learn a thing or two, and you get free childcare.

You have to also remember that a lot of women died during childbirth back then.

Those doctors and midwives really needed that training.

But Semmelweis soon started noticing something really weird.

There was a First and Second Clinic at the hospital, and Semmelweis saw that way more

women died after giving birth at the First Clinic.

In fact, everyone knew this…the women would beg to be sent to the Second Clinic.

Some of them even gave birth outside the hospital and then pretended that they'd accidentally

had the child on the way to the hospital.

That way they could still get free childcare.

Other women actually got on their knees and pleaded with the doctors not to send them

to that deadly first clinic.

The place was a veritable death trap, and Semmelweis and the women knew this only too

well.

You see, those women who died after giving birth were dying of something called puerperal

fever, aka childbed fever.

That's a fever a woman gets because of a uterine infection after giving birth.

What really shocked Semmelweis is that more women in the First Clinic were getting this

than those giving birth in the streets.

Surely the clinic must be a safer environment, he thought.

The man then started looking at the data.

He saw that some of the wards were staffed by midwives, some by medical students, and

some by trained doctors.

Guess, what?

Way more women died that had been treated by the most educated people, the doctors.

Women were five times less likely to get the deadly fever if their baby was delivered by

a midwife.

“What is this deformity of reason,” wondered Semmelweis, and so he started doing some rounds

at the wards.

He noticed one major difference, and that was that at the midwives' wards the women

had their kids on their side, and in the doctors' clinic they gave birth on their backs.

Ok, thought Semmelweis, it's just a matter of angles.

He ordered that all women now give birth on their sides.

Did it work?

No, they still kept dying at the same rate at the doctor's clinic.

He was lost for an explanation, but then he saw that after a woman died in the First Clinic

a priest would walk up and down the wards ringing a bell.

For what reason, we don't know, but Semmelweis wondered if the sound of a death bell stressed

the women, and this somehow made them sick.

He stopped the bell-ringing for a while.

This of course was a long shot, and it didn't work.

Semmelweis became so frustrated by all of this, that he actually took a bit of time

off and got some fresh air in the Austrian countryside.

Still, it bugged him every day…why were all those women dying in that one clinic.

IT JUST MADE NO SENSE!

Then when he got back to the hospital he received more bad news.

His friend, a pathologist, had just died.

He'd been doing an autopsy on a woman who'd died from childbed fever.

He'd pricked his finger during that autopsy and his blood had mixed with hers.

He subsequently got a fever and later died.

Semmelweis then noticed something, his friend the pathologist had had the same symptoms

as someone with childbed fever.

It was a bit of a Eureka moment.

He knew that the fever wasn't just something that pregnant women could get, but it was

some kind of thing that could be spread.

Then he had his second eureka moment.

He realized that the doctors at the First Clinic did a lot of autopsies, but the midwives

at the Second Clinic didn't.

He thought about his dead pathologist friend and started connecting the dots....

This disease, he hypothesized, can be carried from one person to another.

This may all seem very elementary to you guys watching, but you have to remember that germ

science wasn't invented yet.

Physicians had for years written theories about how diseases were spread, but microorganisms

and pathogens were not understood.

Semmelweis considered that in some of those cadavers that were being dissected there were

small particles of disease.

After digging around, a doctor would transfer that disease with his own hands to a pregnant

woman.

Particles from the corpses' blood was getting into the woman's blood and then she died,

infected from a dead person with the vector being the good but ignorant doctor.

Semmelweis then told everyone to wash their hands with soap and water, and after that

chlorine solution.

The latter is actually an amazing disinfectant, but Semmelweis didn't know that because

he didn't really understand germs.

He just told them to use it ‘cos it cleared up the smell of corpses on doctors' hands.

What happened next of course was that suddenly lots of women were not getting the fever at

the First Clinic.

Hand-washing was a success.

Women no longer begged to be taken to the Second Clinic or secretly had their babies

in the streets.

Semmelweis told the medical community at large.

He said, guys, you know what, washing hands saves lives.

I have the data to prove this.

It's incontestable.

You guys doing autopsies are spreading disease around.

In fact, everyone should start washing their hands.

It somehow stops diseases spreading.

They thought he was mad, and being the kings of the medical community, some of the leading

surgeons totally dismissed Semmelweis's idea.

“What,” some surgeons thought, “You are saying we, the life-savers, the frontline

of medical science, are actually killing people.”

“Ugh…yes,” said Semmelweis…”

Please wash your hands.”

He made a lot of enemies.

Semmelweis was right, but he was also quite obsessed.

He ranted and raved about washing hands.

He shouted from the rooftops, and the higher ups in the medical community didn't like

it.

They didn't much like him.

Here was an upstart trying to say doctors killed their patients because they carried

invisible monsters on their hands.

Was that science or witchcraft!?

He actually got fired from the hospital, and yes, of course pregnant women started dying

again.

That's because doctors stopped washing their hands.

Semmelweis was smeared and called a loon.

They did a number on him, berated him, as if he was some crazy charlatan spreading misinformation.

Science was about facts, they said, observable facts, not tiny invisible particles travelling

from dead bodies to pregnant women via a doctor.

Semmelweis found it hard to get a job after that.

They ruined him, and he was way ahead of all of them.

He didn't give up at first, though.

He left Austria and travelled around Europe, telling medical professionals that if they

started washing their hands then disease would spread less easily.

No one believed him, or not many people...a few british scientists were actually on his

side.

Semmelweis knew that he could save lives, but hardly anyone was listening.

We should say that some younger students and medical men did take notice of Semmelweis

and try his disinfecting methods, but the old guard of science would not listen.

They controlled the gates to change, and they weren't about to let a relatively unknown

Hungarian man inside the highest of castles.

Semmelweis ended up working back in Hungary and he actually saved tons of lives at a hospital

called St. Rochus, and that was because during an outbreak he made people wash their hands.

Well, he made them wash their hands all the time.

The hospital mortality rate greatly improved after Semmelweis turned up armed with data

and facts about soap and chlorine and the spread of disease.

He was then given the post of Professor of obstetrics at the University of Pest, but

you know what, those so-called leaders of science in Vienna still rejected him.

Some of them even went as far as to say that Semmelweis talked utter nonsense.

He didn't give up, though, and wrote a book “The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis

of Childbed Fever”.

This showed how his disinfecting regimes had saved lives already and could save millions

more.

The book was rejected by the medical community.

When he gave talks around Europe he was virtually booed off-stage by the grey-bearded dinosaurs

of medicine.

We should say here that at this time Semmelweis was relatively young for someone making breakthroughs.

He was only in his mid-forties.

He got angrier and angrier and then one day he just cracked.

This might have been brought on by syphilis, but we don't know, it could have been stress.

There are mixed opinions, but it's likely he had a mental breakdown due to being roundly

rejected and knowing he could save so many people.

At the age of 47 he was committed to a mental asylum and died just a few months later.

How he died is not so clear.

It seems he had a wound on his hand and that wound got infected.

This led to sepsis and then death.

The reason he got that wound, though, is quite upsetting seeing what his great man had achieved.

You see, he was actually lured to the mental asylum by a famous Austrian physician named

Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra.

He told Semmelweis that he wanted to take him there to see a patient.

Once Semmelweis realized there was no patient and he had fallen for a trap, he tried to

escape.

The guards put him in a straight-jacket and subsequently beat him quite badly.

He was thrown into a dark cell, occasionally doused in cold water, and that wound on his

hand festered until his blood was poisoned.

Two decades after Semmelweis died, Louis Pasteur, the famous French biologist and microbiologist,

would confirm that Semmelweis was indeed right.

Pasteur proved that infectious particles spread disease and certainly that of childbed fever.

His experiments in Germ Theory, that of pathogens spreading disease, were groundbreaking, and

they proved that Semmelweis had been right all along.

British scientist, Joseph Lister, who's now called the “Father of Antiseptic Medicine”,

some years later said Semmelweis should be hailed as a hero.

Finally, medical science believed him.

Lister wrote, “I think with the greatest admiration of him and his achievement and

it fills me with joy that at last he is given the respect due to him.”

Sometimes the old guard just reject new, groundbreaking ideas, and that still happens today.

But there's a happy ending to this story, because when that happens and it turns out

the larger intellectual community is wrong, we have a term for what they suffered from.

That term is the “Semmelweis reflex.”

For more things you should be scared of go watch, “Diseases That Will Kill You The

Quickest.”

Or if that's not to your liking, take a look at this….

Why Doctor Who Discovered Hand Washing Ended Up In A Mental Institution |||||||||||Akıl hastanesi |||||||||||institución mental Warum der Arzt, der das Händewaschen entdeckte, in einer psychiatrischen Anstalt landete Γιατί ο γιατρός που ανακάλυψε το πλύσιμο των χεριών κατέληξε σε ψυχιατρικό ίδρυμα Por qué el médico que descubrió el lavado de manos acabó en un psiquiátrico 手洗いを発見した医師が精神病院に収容された理由 손 씻기를 발견한 의사가 정신병원에 갇히게 된 이유 Porque é que o médico que descobriu a lavagem das mãos acabou numa instituição psiquiátrica Почему доктор, открывший способ мытья рук, попал в психиатрическую лечебницу 為什麼發現洗手的醫生最後被關進了精神病院

It's mid-1800s and a group of doctors surround a table which has splayed on it an opened |||||||||||||yayılmış halde|||| ||||||||rodean|||||esparcidos|||| Estamos em meados de 1800 e um grupo de médicos está em volta de uma mesa que está aberta e aberta Середина 1800-х годов, группа врачей окружает стол, на котором разложена раскрытая

cadaver. kadavra cadáver

An audience of men of science watch in awe as those doctors remove organs from the body ||||||||hayranlıkla|||||||| ||||||||asombro reverente||||||||

and try to explain the cause of death.

This is a new age, a new era, but while some of those men are legends in their own right, |||||||||||||||efsaneler olarak bilinir|||| |||||||||||||||leyendas|||| Esta é uma nova era, uma nova era, mas embora alguns desses homens sejam lendas por si só,

they're still pretty ignorant. |||uninformed

Here's why.

After the discectomy a man rushes in and tells those doctors that they should wash their ||Nach der Diskektomie||||||||||||| ||diskektomi sonrası|||koşar|||||||||| ||discectomía|||se apresura|||||||||| Após a discectomia, um homem entra correndo e diz aos médicos que eles devem lavar seus

hands before returning to their hospitals. |||||hastanelerine

It could save lives, he says.

“This is preposterous!” barks one doctor, “Why in God's name would one wash their ||utterly absurd||||||||||| ||saçma||||||||||| ||absurdo|ladra|||||Dios||||| “Isso é absurdo!” grita um médico: “Por que, em nome de Deus, alguém lavaria seus

hands…get out of here you deluded imbecile.” ||||||misguided|foolish person ||||||"aldanmış"|aptal ||||||engañado|imbécil deludido

Welcome to the sad, wonderful and wacky world of how hand-washing got started. ||||||tuhaf||||||| ||||||loca|||||||

You see, at the time, those doctors were in fact about to change the world.

They were champions in an era which could be called the medical enlightenment. ||||||||||||medical advancement period ||campeones||||||||||ilustración médica

This was the time that surgeons were understanding the human body much better than ever before,

when illness and disease was no longer being blamed on a person having a “demonic sensibility”. |sickness||illness or ailment|||||||||||| ||||||||||||||şeytani duyarlılık|şeytani duyarlılık ||||||||culpadas atribuídas|||||||

Opening up bodies was nothing new.

In fact, in the 17th century the Company of Surgeons in London would often dissect convicted ||||||||||||||parçalarına ayırmak|mahkum edilmiş |||||||||||||||condenados

murders in public…after they'd been hanged of course. cinayetler||||||asılmış||

London wasn't quite Westeros, although body-snatching was all the rage because those doctors and |||Westeros değildi|||ceset kaçırma||||çok modaydı|||| |||Westeros|||robo de cuerpos||||estaba de moda|||| Londres não era exatamente Westeros, embora o roubo de corpos estivesse na moda porque aqueles médicos e Лондон был не совсем Вестеросом, хотя похищение тел было в почете, потому что врачи и

surgeons needed more training.

These surgeons were like Kings at around the time of the 1850s. |cirujanos||||||||||

Dissection was nothing new, but in London and all over Europe medical men were not just "Sezieren"||||||||||||||| Diseksiyon||||||||||||||| la disección|||||||||||||||

seeing how the body worked, but they were now heading into the world of “pathological ||||||||||||||patológica vendo como o corpo funcionava, mas eles agora estavam entrando no mundo da "patologia

anatomy”, meaning dissecting as a way of finding the cause of death. Post-mortem examination||Performing an autopsy||||||||| ||Otopsi yapmak||||||||| ||disección|||||||||

So now imagine that one day some of the leading surgeons in the world are doing their thing

and in walks a man that tells them to wash their hands.

They think this guy is tripping, to use today's parlance, and laugh him out of the hospital. |||||||||modern terminology||||||| |||||kafayı yemiş||||günümüz deyimiyle||||||| |||||está loco||||jerga actual||se ríen||||| Eles acham que esse cara está viajando, para usar o jargão de hoje, e riem dele para fora do hospital. Они думают, что этот парень, выражаясь сегодняшним языком, споткнулся, и со смехом выпроваживают его из больницы.

This guy wasn't tripping at all, and in fact, we can thank him for changing the world. |||overreacting or hallucinating||||||||||||| |||kafası karışık|||||||||||||

We can thank him for saving countless lives, and that's why he is sometimes called “The

Savior of Mothers.”

It was the doctors who were ignorant and deluded. ||||||||misled or deceived ||||||cahil||yanıltılmış ||||||||engañados Это врачи были невежественны и заблуждались.

We also bet that most of you guys have never even heard of this hero, how he changed the

world, but how he died so savagely. ||||||brutally ||||||vahşice ||||||salvajemente

We guarantee you, this is one of the best stories you've never heard.

The man we are talking about was one Ignaz Semmelweis and he was born on 1 July 1818 ||||||||Ignaz Semmelweis|Semmelweis|||||| ||||||||Ignaz Semmelweis|Semmelweis||||||

in what is now today's Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. ||||||||||Hungary's capital ||||||||||Macaristan'da |||||Budapest|||||Hungría

He got himself a medical degree and then focused on a branch of medicine called obstetrics. |||||||||||||||pregnancy and childbirth |||||||||||||||doğum bilimi |||||||||||||||obstetricia Ele se formou em medicina e depois se concentrou em um ramo da medicina chamado obstetrícia.

If you don't know what that is, it's concerned with childbirth. ||||||||||doğum yapmak ||||||||||el parto

Ah ok, so this guy wasn't one of those heroic surgeons, you are thinking. |||||||||heroicos||||

The answer is no.

Semmelweis actually went to work as an assistant professor at The First Obstetrical Clinic ||||||||||||Doğumla ilgili|Birinci Doğum Kliniği ||||||||||||Obstétrica|

of the Vienna General Hospital. ||Viena||

This was the year 1846, and the city of Vienna was a center of science and art.

At the time a lot of poor women or prostitutes were getting pregnant and then killing the |||||||||fahişeler||||||| |||||||||prostitutas|||||||

baby.

This is known as infanticide, and was quite common back then. ||||killing of infants|||||| ||||bebek öldürme|||||| ||||infanticidio|||||| Isso é conhecido como infanticídio e era bastante comum naquela época.

This clinic where our good doctor worked would actually take in pregnant women and even help Esta clínica onde nosso bom médico trabalhava atendia mulheres grávidas e até ajudava

bring up the child. criar a criança.

This was the deal.

The hospital said, hey, come have your child here.

Our new doctors and nurses can learn a thing or two, and you get free childcare. ||||hemşirelerimiz|||||||||||çocuk bakımı ücretsiz |||||||||||||||cuidado infantil

You have to also remember that a lot of women died during childbirth back then.

Those doctors and midwives really needed that training. |||ebeler|||| |||parteras||||

But Semmelweis soon started noticing something really weird.

There was a First and Second Clinic at the hospital, and Semmelweis saw that way more

women died after giving birth at the First Clinic.

In fact, everyone knew this…the women would beg to be sent to the Second Clinic. Na verdade, todos sabiam disso ... as mulheres implorariam para serem enviadas para a Segunda Clínica.

Some of them even gave birth outside the hospital and then pretended that they'd accidentally ||||||||||||||Kazara olarak

had the child on the way to the hospital.

That way they could still get free childcare.

Other women actually got on their knees and pleaded with the doctors not to send them

to that deadly first clinic.

The place was a veritable death trap, and Semmelweis and the women knew this only too ||||true||||||||||| ||||veritable|||||||||||

well.

You see, those women who died after giving birth were dying of something called puerperal ||||||||||||||Wochenbettfieber ||||||||||||||childbed fever ||||||||||||||puerperal Você vê, aquelas mulheres que morreram após o parto estavam morrendo de algo chamado puerperal

fever, aka childbed fever. ||Kindbettfieber| ||fiebre puerperal| лихорадка, она же родильная горячка.

That's a fever a woman gets because of a uterine infection after giving birth. |||||||||womb-related|||| |||||||||uterina||||

What really shocked Semmelweis is that more women in the First Clinic were getting this

than those giving birth in the streets.

Surely the clinic must be a safer environment, he thought. seguramente|||||||||

The man then started looking at the data.

He saw that some of the wards were staffed by midwives, some by medical students, and ||||||salas||tenían personal||parteras||||| Ele viu que algumas das enfermarias eram compostas por parteiras, outras por estudantes de medicina e

some by trained doctors.

Guess, what?

Way more women died that had been treated by the most educated people, the doctors. |||||||cared for|||||||

Women were five times less likely to get the deadly fever if their baby was delivered by

a midwife. |Hebamme |partera

“What is this deformity of reason,” wondered Semmelweis, and so he started doing some rounds |||deformidad||||||||||| “O que é essa deformidade da razão”, se perguntou Semmelweis, e então ele começou a fazer algumas rondas

at the wards. ||hospital departments ||las salas

He noticed one major difference, and that was that at the midwives' wards the women Он заметил одно существенное отличие: в акушерских палатах женщины

had their kids on their side, and in the doctors' clinic they gave birth on their backs. tiveram seus filhos do seu lado, e na clínica dos médicos eles deram à luz nas costas. Рожали на боку, а во врачебной клинике - на спине.

Ok, thought Semmelweis, it's just a matter of angles. Хорошо, подумал Земмельвейс, это просто вопрос углов.

He ordered that all women now give birth on their sides.

Did it work?

No, they still kept dying at the same rate at the doctor's clinic.

He was lost for an explanation, but then he saw that after a woman died in the First Clinic Ele estava perdido por uma explicação, mas então ele viu isso depois que uma mulher morreu na Primeira Clínica

a priest would walk up and down the wards ringing a bell. |sacerdote|||||||||| um padre caminhava para cima e para baixo nas enfermarias tocando um sino. Священник ходил по палатам, звоня в колокольчик.

For what reason, we don't know, but Semmelweis wondered if the sound of a death bell stressed

the women, and this somehow made them sick.

He stopped the bell-ringing for a while.

This of course was a long shot, and it didn't work. Isso, claro, foi um tiro no escuro e não funcionou.

Semmelweis became so frustrated by all of this, that he actually took a bit of time

off and got some fresh air in the Austrian countryside. ||||||||austriaca|

Still, it bugged him every day…why were all those women dying in that one clinic. ||bothered||||||||||||| ||le molestaba||||||||||||| Ainda assim, isso o incomodava todos os dias ... por que todas aquelas mulheres estavam morrendo naquela clínica. И все же это беспокоило его каждый день... почему все эти женщины умирают в одной-единственной клинике.

IT JUST MADE NO SENSE!

Then when he got back to the hospital he received more bad news.

His friend, a pathologist, had just died. |||medical examiner||| |||patólogo|||

He'd been doing an autopsy on a woman who'd died from childbed fever. ||||||||quien había|||fiebre puerperal|

He'd pricked his finger during that autopsy and his blood had mixed with hers. |se pinchó|||||||||||| Ele picou o dedo durante a autópsia e seu sangue se misturou ao dela.

He subsequently got a fever and later died. |posteriormente||||||

Semmelweis then noticed something, his friend the pathologist had had the same symptoms

as someone with childbed fever.

It was a bit of a Eureka moment. ||||||Sudden realization| ||||||momento de descubrimiento|

He knew that the fever wasn't just something that pregnant women could get, but it was

some kind of thing that could be spread.

Then he had his second eureka moment.

He realized that the doctors at the First Clinic did a lot of autopsies, but the midwives |||||||||||||autopsias|||

at the Second Clinic didn't.

He thought about his dead pathologist friend and started connecting the dots....

This disease, he hypothesized, can be carried from one person to another. |||proposed|||||||| |||hipotetizó||||||||

This may all seem very elementary to you guys watching, but you have to remember that germ ||||||||||||||||germen de

science wasn't invented yet.

Physicians had for years written theories about how diseases were spread, but microorganisms los médicos||||||||||||

and pathogens were not understood. |disease-causing agents||| |patógenos|||

Semmelweis considered that in some of those cadavers that were being dissected there were |||||||cadáveres||||disecados||

small particles of disease.

After digging around, a doctor would transfer that disease with his own hands to a pregnant |excavando|||||||||||||| Depois de vasculhar, um médico transferia essa doença com as próprias mãos para uma grávida

woman.

Particles from the corpses' blood was getting into the woman's blood and then she died, |||cadáveres|||||||||||

infected from a dead person with the vector being the good but ignorant doctor. infectado|||||||vector|||||| infectado de uma pessoa morta com o vetor sendo o médico bom, mas ignorante. Заразился от мертвого человека, а переносчиком стал добрый, но невежественный доктор.

Semmelweis then told everyone to wash their hands with soap and water, and after that

chlorine solution. cloro| раствор хлора.

The latter is actually an amazing disinfectant, but Semmelweis didn't know that because ||||||Desinfektionsmittel|||||| |the second option||||||||||| ||||||desinfectante increíble||||||

he didn't really understand germs. ||||gérmenes

He just told them to use it ‘cos it cleared up the smell of corpses on doctors' hands. |||||||porque||||||||||

What happened next of course was that suddenly lots of women were not getting the fever at

the First Clinic.

Hand-washing was a success.

Women no longer begged to be taken to the Second Clinic or secretly had their babies |||suplicaban||||||||||||

in the streets.

Semmelweis told the medical community at large. Земмельвейс обратился к широкой медицинской общественности.

He said, guys, you know what, washing hands saves lives.

I have the data to prove this.

It's incontestable. |Beyond dispute |incontestable

You guys doing autopsies are spreading disease around.

In fact, everyone should start washing their hands.

It somehow stops diseases spreading.

They thought he was mad, and being the kings of the medical community, some of the leading

surgeons totally dismissed Semmelweis's idea. |||Semmelweis| os cirurgiões rejeitaram totalmente a ideia de Semmelweis.

“What,” some surgeons thought, “You are saying we, the life-savers, the frontline ||||||||||salvadores de vidas||de primera línea

of medical science, are actually killing people.”

“Ugh…yes,” said Semmelweis…” ugh|||

Please wash your hands.”

He made a lot of enemies.

Semmelweis was right, but he was also quite obsessed. ||||||||fixated Semmelweis estava certo, mas também estava bastante obcecado.

He ranted and raved about washing hands. |complained loudly about||passionately complained||| |habló con rabia||habló con furia||| Ele discursou e delirou sobre lavar as mãos.

He shouted from the rooftops, and the higher ups in the medical community didn't like ||||los tejados|||||||||| Ele gritou dos telhados, e os superiores da comunidade médica não gostaram

it.

They didn't much like him.

Here was an upstart trying to say doctors killed their patients because they carried |||novato arrogante|||||||||| Aqui estava um arrivista tentando dizer que os médicos matavam seus pacientes porque carregavam

invisible monsters on their hands. invisibles|monstruos invisibles|||

Was that science or witchcraft!? ||||brujería

He actually got fired from the hospital, and yes, of course pregnant women started dying

again.

That's because doctors stopped washing their hands.

Semmelweis was smeared and called a loon. ||defamed|||| ||difamado||||loco Semmelweis foi manchado e chamado de mergulhão. Земмельвейса оклеветали и назвали психом.

They did a number on him, berated him, as if he was some crazy charlatan spreading misinformation. ||||||beschimpften|||||||||| ||||||scolded harshly|||||||||| ||||||lo reprendieron||||||||charlatán loco||desinformación Fizeram uma bagunça nele, repreendeu-o, como se ele fosse um charlatão maluco espalhando desinformação. Они набросились на него, ругали его, как будто он был каким-то сумасшедшим шарлатаном, распространяющим дезинформацию.

Science was about facts, they said, observable facts, not tiny invisible particles travelling ||||||observables||||||

from dead bodies to pregnant women via a doctor.

Semmelweis found it hard to get a job after that.

They ruined him, and he was way ahead of all of them. Eles o arruinaram, e ele estava muito à frente de todos eles.

He didn't give up at first, though. ||||||sin embargo

He left Austria and travelled around Europe, telling medical professionals that if they

started washing their hands then disease would spread less easily.

No one believed him, or not many people...a few british scientists were actually on his

side.

Semmelweis knew that he could save lives, but hardly anyone was listening.

We should say that some younger students and medical men did take notice of Semmelweis

and try his disinfecting methods, but the old guard of science would not listen. |||desinfectantes||||||||||

They controlled the gates to change, and they weren't about to let a relatively unknown |||puertas||||||||||| Они контролировали ворота перемен, и не собирались позволять относительно неизвестному

Hungarian man inside the highest of castles. ||||||castillos Homem húngaro dentro do mais alto dos castelos. Венгерский человек в самом высоком из замков.

Semmelweis ended up working back in Hungary and he actually saved tons of lives at a hospital ||||||his home country||||||||||

called St. Rochus, and that was because during an outbreak he made people wash their hands. ||Rocío|||||||epidemia||||||

Well, he made them wash their hands all the time.

The hospital mortality rate greatly improved after Semmelweis turned up armed with data ||mortalidad hospitalaria|||||||||| A taxa de mortalidade hospitalar melhorou muito depois que Semmelweis apareceu munido de dados

and facts about soap and chlorine and the spread of disease. |||||cloro|||||

He was then given the post of Professor of obstetrics at the University of Pest, but |||||||||childbirth and pregnancy|||||| ||||||||||||||Pest|

you know what, those so-called leaders of science in Vienna still rejected him.

Some of them even went as far as to say that Semmelweis talked utter nonsense. |||||||||||||tonterías absolutas|

He didn't give up, though, and wrote a book “The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis ||||||||||Etiología|||profilaxis

of Childbed Fever”.

This showed how his disinfecting regimes had saved lives already and could save millions |||||regímenes de desinfección||||||||

more.

The book was rejected by the medical community.

When he gave talks around Europe he was virtually booed off-stage by the grey-bearded dinosaurs |||||||||ausgebuht||||||| |||||||||abucheado||del escenario||||con barba|

of medicine.

We should say here that at this time Semmelweis was relatively young for someone making breakthroughs.

He was only in his mid-forties. ||||||cuarenta y tantos

He got angrier and angrier and then one day he just cracked. ||más enojado||||||||| Ele ficou cada vez mais irritado e um dia ele simplesmente desabou.

This might have been brought on by syphilis, but we don't know, it could have been stress. |||||||sífilis|||||||||

There are mixed opinions, but it's likely he had a mental breakdown due to being roundly |||||||||||colapso mental||||de manera contundente

rejected and knowing he could save so many people.

At the age of 47 he was committed to a mental asylum and died just a few months later. ||||||||||asilo mental|||||||

How he died is not so clear.

It seems he had a wound on his hand and that wound got infected. |||||herida||||||||

This led to sepsis and then death. |||sepsis||| Isso levou à sepse e depois à morte.

The reason he got that wound, though, is quite upsetting seeing what his great man had achieved. ||||||sin embargo|||perturbador||||||| Однако причина, по которой он получил эту рану, весьма огорчает, когда видишь, чего добился его великий человек.

You see, he was actually lured to the mental asylum by a famous Austrian physician named |||||atraído|||||||||médico|

Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra. Ferdinand|caballero||Hebra

He told Semmelweis that he wanted to take him there to see a patient. Он сказал Земмельвейсу, что хочет отвезти его к пациенту.

Once Semmelweis realized there was no patient and he had fallen for a trap, he tried to

escape.

The guards put him in a straight-jacket and subsequently beat him quite badly.

He was thrown into a dark cell, occasionally doused in cold water, and that wound on his ||||||||mojado||||||||

hand festered until his blood was poisoned. |became infected||||| |se infectó|||||envenenada

Two decades after Semmelweis died, Louis Pasteur, the famous French biologist and microbiologist, ||||||Pasteur||||biólogo||microbiólogo

would confirm that Semmelweis was indeed right.

Pasteur proved that infectious particles spread disease and certainly that of childbed fever.

His experiments in Germ Theory, that of pathogens spreading disease, were groundbreaking, and |||||||disease-causing agents|||||

they proved that Semmelweis had been right all along. ||||||||siempre había estado

British scientist, Joseph Lister, who's now called the “Father of Antiseptic Medicine”, ||José|Lister|||||||antiséptico|

some years later said Semmelweis should be hailed as a hero. |||||||celebrado como héroe|||

Finally, medical science believed him.

Lister wrote, “I think with the greatest admiration of him and his achievement and |||||||admiración profunda||||||

it fills me with joy that at last he is given the respect due to him.” меня переполняет радость, что наконец-то ему оказывают должное уважение".

Sometimes the old guard just reject new, groundbreaking ideas, and that still happens today.

But there's a happy ending to this story, because when that happens and it turns out |||||||||||||||resulta que

the larger intellectual community is wrong, we have a term for what they suffered from. |||||||||||||sufrieron de| a comunidade intelectual maior está errada, temos um termo para o que eles sofreram.

That term is the “Semmelweis reflex.” Esse termo é o “reflexo de Semmelweis”. Этот термин называется "рефлекс Земмельвейса".

For more things you should be scared of go watch, “Diseases That Will Kill You The To learn about|||||||||||||||

Quickest.” más rápido

Or if that's not to your liking, take a look at this…. ||||||gusto|||||