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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 survival work of a Hungarian obstetrician has finally come to an end.
Decades before Louis Pasteur was widely accepted for the theory of germs, Ignac Semmelweis fought against his peers to accept what is today. medical orthodoxy – doctors should thoroughly disinfect their hands before treating patients
Born on July 1, 1818, Semmelweis joined the obstetrics department of the Vienna General Hospital in 1846 and is immediately struck by the maternal mortality rate extremely high in the wing. trained: it was more than 10%, sometimes reaching 40%.
In contrast, in the neighboring wing where midwives were trained, the rate remained below the contemporary average of three percent
. He greatly troubled Semmelweis and started a thorough epidemiological study, "says Bernhard Kuenburg, president of the Semmelweis Foundation in Vienna
. Semmelweis hypothesized that corpses must contain invisible but potentially lethal "particles".
"At the time, medical students were going directly to an autopsy to help with a job. "Soap was not enough to solve the problem," Kubren told Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Semmelweis imposed a harsher handwashing regime for five minutes with a solution of chlorinated lime . 19659002] With this "very simple method", Semmelweis reduced the mortality rate "to almost zero," says Kuenburg.
Fiery provision
But instead of applause, Semmelweis suffered the anger of the greats of The Vienna Medical Brotherhood and his contract was not renewed in 1849.
"L & # 39; Physicians' self-esteem was very high at the moment.Of course, they were offended because they did not like the idea that they were guilty of causing this terrible death rate
In addition, it would take another quarter of a century before Pasteur could finally prove the existence of "microbes."
Other doctors required 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 the inflamed Semmelweis disposition and the lack of tact did not help – he did not hesitate to call his colleagues "murder ns. "
Towards the end of his life he deteriorated and he died in an asylum in 1865, at the age of 47 years.
Semmelweis' reputation began to be rehabilitated at the end of the 19th century after the discoveries of Pasteur, Robert Koch and Alexandre Yersin. his theories.
In 1924, the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline devotes a medical thesis to him and calls it "genius". Today, he is considered the father of modern theories of hospital hygiene and sterilization
. A few years ago, the rate of hand disinfection was only about 20%. Now, it is becoming one of the important topics in the medical literature, "says Professor Didier Pittet, expert in infection prevention at the World Health Organization (WHO).
"In a way, it's the revenge of Semmelweis. , s, id) {
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