Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian doctor born in 1818. He spent many years working in Vienna as a gynaecologist. He is cosidered to be the pioneer of antiseptics.

The Hungarian doctor really wanted to undestand why childbed fever (infections appearing after childbirth) occurs in 10% of cases in one Viennese ginaecological clinic and only in 4% in the other. He realised that his friend who had injured himself during a post mortem examination died several days later suffering from the same symptoms as in case of his patients. He discovered that this high mortality rate in the first clinic is due to the fact that doctors don't wash their hands after post mortem examinations and unknowingly transfer the illness to mothers they examine later. As for the second clinic, they don't do there any necropsys which explains the lower mortality rate. 

Although his discovery seems today very logical, it was not for his superior. We need to remember that when Semmelweis lived no one had ever heard of micro-organisms. That's why his hipothesis was rejected and laughed by other scientists.

It was confirmed that he had been right after his death in 1865. The example of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis shows that it's not easy to swim against the tide. The price of being autonomous and self-reliant can be really high. But if it hadn't been for his independance and courage, he wouldn't have helped so many patients.  

When I look back upon the past, I can only dispel the sadness which falls upon me by gazing into that happy future when the infection [puerperal/childbed fever] will be banished. But if it is not vouchsafed for me to look upon that happy time with my own eyes… the conviction that such a time must inevitably sooner or later arrive will cheer my dying hour.