Ignaz Semmelweis: An Obnoxious Hero

So I came across a link to the blogpost A Tale of Two Doctors

What is told is not the whole story. Not even close. The section on Ignaz Semmelweis contains so numerous factual errors I think it it slanderous.

Semmelweis did actually collect the data, but that was not enough. Here I'm quoting Wikipedia, but this is a story my parents told us kids at the dinner table, so I know it well:

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community.

The doctors — dressed in tailcoat and top hat — would perform autopsies on former patients, and then go right over and assists in births without changing or even cleaning their hands beyond a perfunctory wipe with a rag. Needless to say, infections were common and mortality sky high when doctors attended. But, Semmelweis did note that such was not the case when midwives did the delivery. Through through record keeping, statistics, and finally by performing clinical experiments, he proved the connection and was able to drastically decrease mortality.

However, he failed to convince his superiors who did not appreciate being blamed, nor being told to take time out to was their hands.

The rejection of his findings had several causes:

• He did not propose an underlying mechanism. Remember, this is before germ theory.
• He accused the other doctors for actually being the cause of the horrendous mortality at the clinic.
• The patients (poor and prostitutes) at the clinic had no standing in society.
• He was a Jew. Not a good thing to be in Vienna at the time.

As with so many heroes, Semmelweis was a flawed human being. After having proved his case, and having the findings rejected out of ignorance and prejudice, he resorted to vicious personal attacks, somewhat incoherent articles and lectures, and in general behaved like an obnoxious jerk.

But these flaws are entirely outside of his brilliance as a true scientist who built a solid framework for his claims. It can be said that he laid the foundation for future clinical research.

And no, physicians still don't was their hands:
NYT: With Money at Risk, Hospitals Push Staff to Wash Hands
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For more reading, the Wikipedia article about Ignaz Semmelweis is actually a pretty good starting point to this fascinating story.

Thanks to +Chauncy Gardiner for finding the original story. I have also posted a slightly earlier version of this post as a comment here.