Location: Vienna General Hospital š(1840s )
Story:
In the 1840s, Ignaz Semmelweis, a young Hungarian doctor, was horrified by the high death rate in his hospital's maternity ward, up to 18% of mothers died of childbed fever. He noticed that doctors often went straight from autopsies to delivering babies without washing their hands. He suspected they were transferring "cadaverous particles" to the mothers. He mandated handwashing with chlorinated lime water. The mortality rate plummeted to 1% almost overnight. š„
Twist:
Instead of praise, Semmelweis faced outrage. Established physicians, insulted by the implication that their hands were dirty, rejected his idea,especially since germ theory did not yet exist. He was ridiculed, fired, and driven to a mental breakdown, eventually confined to an asylum. There, he was beaten by guards and died from an infected wound; ironically, the very sepsis he had fought to prevent. Only years later, when Pasteur and Lister proved germ theory, was Semmelweis vindicated as a pioneer. Today, he is remembered as the man who taught the world to wash its hands, a hero whose truth arrived too late to save him, but just in time to save millions. š