Matt Kaplan

Is there something that I am doing

And so he went to the local sewage treatment plant because, you know, raw human sewage smells pretty bad too.

He noticed they were dumping chloride of lime into the sewer to try to make it stink less.

And he asked the sewage treatment folks, hey, could I have some of that?

Created a solution that was, you know, way more powerful than what you would ever put in your swimming pool.

Doused his hands in it and went, huh.

No more death.

The aura of death is gone.

No more death.

Never mind that the skin fell off his hands five days later because the solution was so strong.

But, you know, I mean, he went, wow, the smell is gone.

And then he started testing this and he asked all the other doctors in the ward to follow suit.

And remarkably, they did.

And the infection rate dropped, wait for it, from 21% to zero.

So he had had a mentor named Joseph Skoda, who was honestly, for lack of better words, the best description is he was like the 1800s Vienna example of Sheldon Cooper.

Socially inept, genius, knew exactly what he was talking about with numbers, and was an outcast amongst the doctors at the Vienna hospital.

Semmelweis got on well with him and learned a lot from this fellow.

And he learned how to make notes and keep records and start considering the concept of statistical significance.

Although you don't need statistical significance when your rate of 21% goes to zero.

That doesn't require p-values or chi-squared tests or anything.