• amio@kbin.run
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    5 months ago

    Semmelweiss. His radical idea of “surgeons ought to wash their hands” saw him widely ridiculed and reduced to poverty, and he died in an institution.

    • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      Semmelweis discovered that a particular type of infection was much less likely to occur when doctors washed their hands with chlorinated lime water between doing an autopsy and examining a patient. However he did not know why or how this worked, and did not discover microorganisms (which were already observed by Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek some ~180 years earlier).

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If I knew something that everyone could do to dramatically reduce the risk of life threatening infections, and nobody listened to me, I’d be kind of a dick too.

    • Lizardking27@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Semmelweis didn’t discover microbes. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first observed microbes in feces using the first microscope (the Leeuvenhoek microscope), which he also invented.