She Blinded Me With Science

One of my Microbiology professors did a lecture on controlling microbes in the clinical setting, and she dispensed some really neat historical biographies on a couple of very famous scientists/physicians who had an impact on the world through their discoveries, saving millions of lives in the process. So, I thought it might be neat to share their stories -- I'm a sucker for stuff like this (one of my favorite parts of the recent Body Worlds exhibit, which features "plastinated" human bodies in a very tasteful and artful display, was the historical information on all of the famous early anatomists. For example, did you know that in centuries ago, the church considered it immoral and unethical to dissect the human body, and outlawed it for over 1,000 years? Galen, the famous Greek anatomist, created the foundation of modern anatomy in the second century by working on pigs and monkeys. During the Renaissance period, cultural ideas and social taboos started to shift, but the famous artists like Michaelangelo and his rival scholar Leonardo di Vinci actually had to rob graves in the dead of night in order to perform dissections and further scientific study of the human body). And so, I will now present to you the story of two of the most prominent figures in the field of Microbiology, with a slight twist. I'm going to try my Paul Harvey impression while doing so (this one's for my Grandma). So don't say you've never learned anything by reading my blog!


Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is -- in a minute, you're going to hear... the rest of the story.

In 1846, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis was assigned to the first obstetrical clinic at Vienna General Hospital. He became alarmingly aware of a higher death rate due to puerperal fever among delivering mothers at his clinic, which was staffed by medical students, than at other wards in the area, which were run by midwives. Puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever, can develop into sepsis, a whole body inflammatory state caused by infection that is life-threatening if not treated. Semmelweis did his best to make sure the procedures were being carried out the same at his clinic as they were elsewhere, and still the unusally high mortality at his ward persisted. After a fellow colleague of his died from sepsis following a scalpal cut during an autopsy, Semmelweis then came to realize that the diseases were the same and rationalized that the medical students were somehow infecting the mothers. You see, there were no Universal Precautions back in his day, and when his medical students were between childbirth deliveries, they went to work on cadavers.

Semmelweis then enforced a strict handwashing policy using chlorinated lime and subsequently nearly eliminated death due to puerperal sepsis in his clinic. However, as is often the case when new scientific discoveries are made, his ideas were not readily accepted in the medical community, and his methods were not widely practiced, despite Semmelweis repeating his results in other hospitals and clinics. Later in his life, he became mentally unbalanced and his mind deteriorated, and some speculate that he had contracted syphillis, which was common among obstetricians at the time, and can lead to neurological symptoms such as dementia, mania, psychosis, and depression. In 1865, he was committed to an asylum, and in a case of cruel irony, he died of sepsis following a beating from the guards .


Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865)

Around the time of Semmeweis's death, French scientist Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease, which gave a theoretical basis for what Semmelweis had been working towards. Semmelweis is now held in high esteem in the medical and academic world and often referred to as the "Savior of Mothers." However, the story does not end there ...


Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Page Two

In the same year that Semmelweis died, Joseph, an English surgeon made his first great success in Glasgow using carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments. Back in this time, the prevailing theory of diseases like cholera and the Black Death was the miasma theory, which maintained that diseases were spread thorough a noxious form of polluted air. Joseph was not convinced that wound infections were caused by miasma, and inspired by Pasteur's germ theory, he began to experiment with using carbolic acid, which at the time was used to treat sewage. He eventually came up with a formula that could be used as an antiseptic for treating wounds and handwashing as well as a disinfectant for surgical instruments. His ideas were initally met with skepticism, but were eventually accepted in his lifetime, and he was knighted in 1883. He is now known as the "Father of Antiseptics" and the "Father of Modern Surgery." You may recognize him by his full (knighted) name -- Sir Joseph Lister, and by the product later developed in 1879 and named in honor of him, Listerine.


Sir Joesph Lister (1827-1912)

And know you know ... the rest of the story.
Paul Harvey ... Good day.


Paul Harvey (1918-present)