In the mid-1800s, a medical doctor working at the Vienna Gener | Quotes for UPSC

In the mid-1800s, a medical doctor working at the Vienna General Hospital noticed something strange... Mothers were dying at three times the rate if they gave birth in the wards staffed by doctors, than in wards staffed by midwives. Very strange... What could be happening? He decided to investigate... After eliminating all other possibilities, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian, suspected that the medical students and doctors were transferring  "cadaverous particles" from the autopsy room to the maternity ward, causing the high mortality rate. (You probably already get why because you are from the future, but unfortunately, his peers did not – leading to a sad ending) This was before the understanding of germ theory and the importance of hygiene in preventing infections. The midwives did not interact with cadavers, but the doctors and medical students did. They would come from the autopsy room to deliver babies without washing their hands. When Dr. Ignaz proposed hand-washing to his fellow physicians. He was greatly ridiculed for coming up with such a stupid idea. How dare he remotely suggest that doctors were somehow responsible for deaths... He tried really hard to champion this idea, but it conflicted with the accepted medical opinions of the day. In 1865, he suffered a nervous breakdown, perhaps, from all the ridicule. And was placed in a  psychiatric hospital by his colleagues. He was beaten by the guards and died two weeks later from injuries he sustained. Only after Louis Pasteur's work provided strong evidence in support of germ theory did hand-washing begin to gain widespread acceptance. Today, in modern medicine, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis is regarded as the father of hand hygiene. But in his day, he was an irritant. Lesson: When people ridicule your novel ideas, it doesn't mean you are stupid. Perhaps it's just meant for a different time or a different set of people. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." ––– Max Planck (German Physicist)
Courtesy : Storiesforceos (Twitter page)