Ignaz Semmelweis, the first to realize that physicians washing their hands saved the lives of women in childbirth, died in an asylum after being ridiculed by doctors who saw no reason to wash between touching corpses and delivering babies. He died of gangrene from beatings by guards. What a heartbreaking life, knowing he figured out how to keep women alive, only to be crushed by the system because no one knew about germs.
NightOfTheHunter t1_iqyirnc wrote
Reply to comment by lego_office_worker in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog
Ignaz Semmelweis, the first to realize that physicians washing their hands saved the lives of women in childbirth, died in an asylum after being ridiculed by doctors who saw no reason to wash between touching corpses and delivering babies. He died of gangrene from beatings by guards. What a heartbreaking life, knowing he figured out how to keep women alive, only to be crushed by the system because no one knew about germs.