In the 19th century, while the Strauss waltzes resonated in the aristocratic halls and the Austrohungal Empire lived its cultural splendor, a silent tragedy developed in the maternity halls of the General Hospital of Vienna. One in six women who … He gave birth in the first obstetric clinic of the hospital died as a result of a mysterious disease known as “puerperal fever.” Mothers, instead of experiencing the joy of holding their newborns, succumbed to a devastating infection that consumed them in a matter of days.
In this scenario appeared a Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, a man whose life would become a dramatic example of how scientific conservatism can fare fiercely to an uncomfortable truth, and how professional vanity can collect thousands of innocent lives.
The doctor who dared to see the invisible
Ignaz Semmelweis was not a revolutionary by nature. Born in 1818 in Buddha, in the current Budapest, son of a prosperous merchant, he followed the traditional path of Viennese medicine, graduating in 1844. Far away he was imagining that his career would make him one of the most controversial doctors of his time.
In 1846 Semmelweis was appointed assistant at the first obstetric clinic of the General Hospital of Vienna. This appointment, which could have been the beginning of a conventional and quiet career, directly faced it with a disturbing reality: the mortality rate for puerperal fever in its clinic was five times greater than in the second clinic, directed by midwives.
The official explanations for this difference were diverse, some scratching in the ridiculous. There was talk of atmospheric factors, miasmas and even the patients themselves were blamed for their shame when they were treated by male students. But Semmelweis was not content with these superstitious explanations.
What distinguished Semmelweis was his obsession with the data and his fierce determination to solve the enigma. He began to bring a meticulous record of the cases, analyzing the potential factors that could influence mortality. Was it the childbirth position? The diet? The ventilation? No variable seemed to answer the question of why so many women died in their clinic.
The discovery that changed medicine
The key to unraveling the mystery came in 1847, after the tragic death of his colleague and friend, Professor Jakob Kolletschka. This doctor had died after a student accidentally made a cut on the finger during an autopsy. The description of the disease that killed Kolletschka turned on a light in Semmelweis’s mind: the symptoms were identical to those of puerperal fever.
Semmelweis had a disturbing revelation: doctors and students performed autopsies in the morning and then, without more, they proceeded to examine the parturients, carrying with what he called cadaveric particles in his hands. The midwives, which did not perform autopsies, did not transmit these particles.
This observation, which today seems evident, was revolutionary at a time when the theory of germs did not yet exist. Semmelweis had discovered the transmission of infections before the existence of bacteria was known.
Immediately, he established a simple but provocative protocol: he ordered that all doctors and students wash their hands with a lime chloride solution before examining patients. The results were spectacular. In just one month the mortality rate in the first clinic decreased from 18% to 1%.
The medical establishment against Semmelweis
Anyone would think that, given such a resounding success, the medical community would enthusiastically welcome the discovery of Semmelweis. Nothing is further from reality. Its simple but effective innovation faced a fierce resistance.
The Viennese doctors, educated in the hypocratic tradition, rejected the idea that they could be carriers of disease. Semmelweis’s suggestion that a doctor’s hands could cause death was a direct attack on the self -image of the medical profession.
The resistance was not only intellectual but also practical: many doctors refused to follow the hand washing protocol, considering it a waste of time. Professor Johann Klein, Semmelweis supervisor, became his main detractor. Klein, a conservative and authoritarian doctor, saw the innovation of Semmelweis as a threat to his authority and the established medical tradition. For Klein, the idea that something as simple as hand washing could save lives was absurd and humiliating.
From 1861 he began to suffer from depression and talked about puerperal fever in each conversation. A colleague took him to the Viennese asylum with a pretext. When Semmelweis tried to leave, the guards hit him severely and locked him in a cell. He died two weeks later, at 47, for a wound in the hand that became gangrenous.
Fortunately, Semmelweis’s work was backed by some visionary doctors, such as Alexander Gordon and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and later the works of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch provided the final scientific basis.
Today, Ignaz Semmelweis is recognized as a pioneer of antisepsy and a patient safety defender. Its history is a reminder of the importance of scientific evidence and perseverance in the search for truth.
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