The revenge of a forgotten medical "genius"

A commemorative plaque for the pioneering scientist Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis lies in the garden of the General Hospital (Allgemeines Krankenhaus, AKH) in Vienna on June 28, 2018.
decades before Louis Pasteur was widely accepted for the theory of germs, Ignac Semmelweis was struggling against his peers to accept what is today medical orthodoxy – doctors should thoroughly disinfect their hands before treating patients. AFP

VIENNA, Austria – This is not an unusual fate for a pioneering scientist: languishing misunderstood of his time before dying in the dark. But as he approaches his 200th birthday, the rescue work of a Hungarian obstetrician is finally coming to an end.

Decades before Louis Pasteur was widely accepted for the theory of disease germs, Ignac Semmelweis was struggling against his peers to accept what is today. medical orthodoxy – doctors must thoroughly disinfect their hands before treating patients

Born on July 1, 1818, Semmelweis enters the obstetrics department of the Vienna General Hospital in 1846 and is immediately struck by the maternal mortality rate extremely high in the wing. doctors trained: it was more than 10%, sometimes reaching nearly 40%.

On the other hand, in the neighboring wing where midwives were trained, the rate remained below the contemporary average of three per cent

. The disparity has deeply troubled Semmelweis and he has undertaken a thorough epidemiological study, "says Bernhard Kuenburg, president of the Semmelweis Foundation in Vienna

. In 1847, the penny fell when a colleague died of sepsis after performing an autopsy: Semmelweis presumed that corpses must contain invisible but potentially fatal "particles".

"At the time, medical students were going directly to an autopsy to help" With a soap that was not enough to solve the problem, Semmelweis imposed a harsher handwashing regime during five minutes with a hard solution of chlorinated lime "

. This "very simple method" Semmelweis has reduced the mortality rate "to almost zero," says Kuenburg.

Fiery provision

But instead of applause, Semmelweis suffered the wrath of the greats of Vienna's medical fraternity and in 1849 his contract was

"The self-esteem of doctors was very high in This time, of course, they were offended because they did not like the idea that they were guilty of causing this terrible death rate, "Kuenburg says.

Moreover, it would take another quarter century before Pasteur finally proves the existence of "microbes."

Other doctors demanded evidence, according to Kuenburg.

"They said: "No, Mr. Semmelweis can not be right, he can not show us the pathogens, so something is fishy with this theory."

And Semmelweis's inflamed disposition and tactlessness Did not help – he did not hesitate to call his colleagues "killers".

Towards the end of his life, his mental health deteriorated and he died in an asylum in 1865, at the age of 47.

100 deaths a day in the EU

At the end of the 19th century, Semmelweis' reputation began to be rehabilitated. Pasteur's discoveries, Robert Koch and Alexander Yersin, carried his theories.

In 1924 the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline gave him a medical thesis and called him "genius".

Today he is considered the father However, even if the disinfection of the hands is accepted as common sense for the medical staff, the practice is still not as systematic as it should be To be, according to Professor Didier Pittet, expert in infection prevention at the hospital. Around the world, this practice is respected only "in 50% of cases on average, even if it can prevent 50 to 70% of nosocomial infections," he told AFP [19659007]. Every year, 3.2 million people are affected by nosocomial infections in the EU, resulting in 100 deaths each day.

Pittet estimates that the overall number of these deaths is between five and eight million a year

. Pittet says, "It's an act that is not taken seriously, especially by doctors. "Pittet says, adding that some seem to think worrying about sterilizing their hands is somehow below them.

However, the WHO campaign" Clean Care is Safer Care " , launched with 19,000 hospitals worldwide to raise a trend of sterilization of the hands begins to bear fruit

As a result of a program piloted by Pittet in Swiss hospitals in the 1990s, Hand disinfection rates in Australia and some Asian establishments are almost 85%.

"Twenty years ago, the rate of hand disinfection was only about 20%. Now he is becoming one of the sexiest subjects in the medical literature, "says Pittet

" In a sense, it's the revenge of Semmelweis. »/ Cbb

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