Terry O'Reilly

Semmelweis cross-referenced 64 more correlations.

It revealed no abnormalities.

Exhausted and frustrated, Semmelweis took a short leave of absence.

When he returned, Semmelweis learned that a young colleague of his had died.

While performing an autopsy, the colleague had nicked his finger with a scalpel.

A few days later, he died of a high temperature and infection.

In other words, the man had died of childbed fever.

That was an epiphany to Semmelweis.

He wondered if some kind of matter from cadavers had entered his bloodstream.

And if so, maybe the doctors were the ones spreading the fever.

After all, doctors performed autopsies, not midwives.

The Vienna Hospital was a renowned teaching hospital, and one of the best ways to teach was with autopsies.

Doctors were performing the postmortems, then walking directly into the maternity ward to deliver babies.

So Semmelweis instituted a policy that all doctors had to thoroughly wash their hands and scrub under their nails before entering the delivery room.

The doctors rebelled.

They were insulted, offended, outraged that a doctor, a person trained to save lives, could possibly be responsible for killing patients.

The doctors dismissed his theory.

The problem was that Semmelweis knew he was right, but couldn't isolate the scientific basis.

The concept of germ theory was still two decades away.

his contract with the hospital was suddenly terminated.