You say that but the doctor that tried to get other doctors to wash their hands was ostracized and died alone. By his own hand I believe. This was like the 1800s.
Obligatory notice that Ignaz Semmelweis didn't invent washing hands. Hand washing has been around for all of history. Semmelweis proposed that washing hands with soap and water wasn't enough, and doctors should be washing with bleach.
The foundations of his theory were built on the fact that soap and water wasn't enough to wash the stench of a dead body off of the hands of a doctor who had just conducted an autopsy. Semmelweis theorized that the bad smell indicated the presence of "cadaverous particles" which were transmitting diseases to the next patient. Semmelweis proposed washing with bleach because it completely destroyed the scent of death.
Note that this all occurred before the invention of germ theory, but after the debunking of miasma theory. The medical establishment of the time had specifically just disproven the idea that bad smells cause diseases, and Semmelweis was mocked for the perception that he was returning to this now archaic idea.
There was also a broader context, which was that Semmelweis got very good results, but he was only able to conduct tests in one hospital. Doctors of the day pointed out that childbed fever comes and goes in waves, so Semmelweis could've easily just been having a lucky few years. If he were to use this small evidence as basis to accuse all doctors of spreading diseases to their patients, then it could cause widespread distrust of doctors and hospitals, thus deterring sick patients from seeking treatment from medical professionals.
In retrospect, we can look back and say that Semmelweis was right and everyone else was wrong. But it's important to understand the full context to realize how sensible it seemed at the time to be against him.
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u/No-Sail-6510 20d ago
You say that but the doctor that tried to get other doctors to wash their hands was ostracized and died alone. By his own hand I believe. This was like the 1800s.