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).
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.
Semmelweis didn’t discover microbes. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first observed microbes in feces using the first microscope (the Leeuvenhoek microscope), which he also invented.
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.
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).
Wasn’t he also kinda of a dick to people
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.
I think it was the other way around nobody listened to him because he was a dick
Semmelweis didn’t discover microbes. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first observed microbes in feces using the first microscope (the Leeuvenhoek microscope), which he also invented.