Hungarian doctor put in a mental hospital for telling doctors to wash their hands

Hungarian doctor put in a mental hospital for telling doctors to wash their hands

161 years ago a Hungarian doctor declared washing hands would save lives. When doctor Ignaz Semmelweis started working at General Hospital in Vienna, he wanted to figure out why so many women in maternity wards were dying from childbed fever. After studying two maternity wards in the hospital, he noticed that the one staffed by all male doctors and medical students had a patient death rate 5 times higher than that in the midwives' clinic.

But why?

So doctor Semmelweis set out on a quest to solve this fatal riddle. He looked at everything they did differently and eventually realised that the big difference between the doctors' ward and the midwives' ward was that the doctors were also performing autopsies. The doctors were rushing from doing an autopsy to delivering the babies. So Semmelweis hypothesised that the doctor's & student's hands were carry contaminating agents from the corpses they dissected. And when they delivered the babies, these contaminating particles were transferred to women in labour. Then they would then develop these diseases and die. So to stop these needless deaths he ordered his medical staff to wash their hands and instruments with a chlorine solution. Today chlorine is used as a powerful disinfectant. Semmelweis didn't know anything about germs. He chose the chlorine because he believed it was the best way of getting rid of any smell left behind by those little particles of corpse. His forced hand washing caused the rate of childbed fever to fall dramatically. You'd think everyone would be thrilled. Semmelweis had solved the problem! But they weren't thrilled. Semmelweis' abrasiveness & lack of tact created a lot of angst, so the other doctors were reluctant to listen to him. He publicly berated those who disagreed with him, making many influential enemies. Over the next 19 years, this constant battle caused him to get angrier & he suffered a mental breakdown. So in 1865, when he was only 47 years old, Ignaz Semmelweis was committed to a mental asylum. When we look back at the actions of these other doctors, we generally consider that they were just plain crazy for not washing their hands.

Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis became an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures

Thanks to Ignaz Semmelweis, **hand washing **is now a common practice & is one of the most important tools in public health. If you're preparing food, then you know you need to wash your hands to keep people safe, without worrying about being locked up in a mental Institution like Semmelweis. Hand washing stops contamination, yet we still hear of people not properly washing their hands while preparing food. So just to show why washing your hands play a vital role in keeping us all safe, check out these stats:

Hand Washing Statistics

“Everyone has germs. Our bodies are covered with germs that help us stay healthy. In addition to the germs that are usually present on our skin, we also pick up germs from contact with other people or objects in our surroundings. These germs are easy to pick up and transfer. In this way, they can cause you, or others, to get sick. Although people usually think that germs are spread through the air, the fact is that germs are most easily spread through hand contact. One of the best ways to stop the spread of germs is to wash OR decontaminate your hands. Hand hygiene is a new term to describe washing or decontaminating hands. Washing hands helps to physically remove germs by friction, and to rinse them down the drain.” Hand Hygiene Australia The spread of germs from the hands of food workers to food is an important cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants. It accounts for 89% of outbreaks in which food was contaminated by food workers... After going to the toilet, 1 hand has 200 million bacteria per 25mm², often picked up from the toilet paper or toilet seat... Handwashing promotion in child daycare centres and schools in high-income countries prevent about 30% of diarrheal episodes... Initial Washroom Hygiene surveyed 100,000 people across Europe on their hand-washing habits and found 60% of women wash their hands after going to the toilet compared to just 3% of men... Your average kitchen chopping board has around 200% more faecal bacteria on it than a toilet seat... Your kitchen sponge can contain 1000's of bacteria per 25mm², including E. coli and Salmonella. So you need to replace these often... 1 in 5 people don't wash their hands and of those that do only 30% use soap... The CDC (Centre for Disease Control, USA) recommends 15-20 seconds of vigorous hand washing with soap and water to effectively kill germs, but only about 5% of people wash their hands for 15 seconds or more... Faecal matter, including bacteria such as E. coli, can be found on just over a quarter of our hands... Touching food with contaminated hands spreads foodborne illnesses like Salmonella, E. Coli, Staph, and diarrheal infection... Proper handwashing can reduce diarrhoea rates by 40%... A study of Detroit school children showed that those who washed their hands had 24% fewer sick days due to respiratory illness and 51% fewer sick days due to upset stomach... Damp hands are 1,000x more likely to spread bacteria than dry hands... For every 15 seconds spent washing hands, 10 times more bacteria is removed... The average person spends less than 10 seconds washing their hands... 30 seconds of using hand sanitiser kills as much bacteria as 2 full minutes of handwashing... Most bacteria on our hands are on the fingertips and under the nails... Washing your hands for 2 minutes removes only 3% more transient microorganisms than washing for 15 seconds... Washing in warm water at 49°C removes more micro-organisms than washing in cooler water at 21 °C... There is an average of 229,000 germs per 25mm² on frequently touched tap handles... So if you want to wash hands without touching the taps, try a Knee Operated Hand Basin.

3MONKEEZ AB-KNEEHBTMV-1 Knee Operated Thermostatic Mixing Valve 11.5 Ltr Hand Basin

This knee operated stainless steel basin is a smart answer to hand washing in areas such as commercial kitchens, hospitals and food processing areas. All 3monkeez hands-free sink models feature WELS approved plumbing hardware. Their one piece wall bracket system makes them easy to install. So you can rest easy knowing your new hands-free sink features only the highest quality components from pipe to tap!

3MONKEEZ AB-KNEEHBTMV-1 Knee Operated Thermostatic Mixing Valve 11.5 Ltr Hand Basin Features and Benefits

11.5 litre capacity... Shroud – constructed from 1.2mm 304 grade stainless steel... Basin – constructed from 1mm 304 grade stainless steel... 50mm splashback... 40mm outlet... Pre-plumbed with or without temp valve... All models are fitted with WELS approved plumbing hardware... With the 3MONKEEZ Knee Operated Hand Basin, you never need to touch the tap to wash your hands, so you'll reduce the risk of contamination. Check out the 3MONKEEZ AB-KNEEHBTMV-1 Knee Operated Thermostatic Mixing Valve 11.5 Ltr Hand Basin

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