Ignaz Semmelweiss

Something that I quoted in my first grievance

Q.I.

Friday 17^th December 2010, 20.30

Rob Brydon        For a long time doctors and surgeons didn’t realise that it was actually very important to wash your hands before you operate, because they weren’t aware of the transference of germs and it was Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian, and he came up with this theory because he was at the Vienna Infirmary. He started this whole idea of the importance of cleanliness and hygiene.

Steven Fry          You’re absolutely right, there’s a museum in Budapest, to which I’ve been, called the Semmelweis Museum, which is where he lived. He died in poverty and insanity. In fact he died in an insane asylum because no-one recognised the absolute truth of what he said.

Alan Davies        So obsessively clean hands actually drive you mad

Steven Fry          No, what drives you mad is telling the truth and having no-one believe you. You see Doctors couldn’t face the fact that he was basically saying that thousands and thousands of deaths that took place in Hospitals were ultimately the fault of Doctors.

While working at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria, Semmelweis discovered in 1847 that hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions reduced the incidence of fatal puerperal fever from about 10 percent (range 5-30 percent) to about 1-2 percent. At the time, diseases were attributed to many different and unrelated causes. Each case was considered unique, just like a human person is unique. Semmelweis' hypothesis, that there was only one cause, that all that mattered was cleanliness, was extreme at the time, and was largely ignored, rejected or ridiculed. He was dismissed from hospital and had difficulty finding employment as a medical doctor.Semmelweis was outraged by the indifference of the medical profession and began writing open and increasingly angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, at times denouncing them as irresponsible murderers. His contemporaries, including his wife, believed he was losing his mind and he was in 1865 committed to an asylum (mental institution). Semmelweis died there only 14 days later, possibly after being severely beaten by guards.


I know how he felt.

Hopefully my current lethargy is just the after-effects of flu and not a return of the depression I suffered, and am still on medication for, a couple of years ago.