Science Memes

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submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 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).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wasn’t he also kinda of a dick to people

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I think it was the other way around nobody listened to him because he was a dick

[–] [email protected] 1 points 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.