The Doctor They Laughed At
In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis noticed something devastating in the Vienna General Hospital. Women in the maternity ward staffed by doctors were dying of...
This is stories & illustrations, drawing on 2 Kings 5:1-14.
In 1847, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis noticed something devastating in the Vienna General Hospital. Women in the maternity ward staffed by doctors were dying of childbed fever at five times the rate of those attended by midwives. After weeks of investigation, Semmelweis identified the cause: doctors were moving straight from autopsies to deliveries without washing their hands. His prescription was breathtakingly simple — wash with a chlorine solution before examining patients.…
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