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The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives : Shots - Health News : NPR

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This is the story of a man whose ideas could have saved a lot of lives and spared countless numbers of women and newborns' feverish and agonizing deaths. You'll notice I said "could have." The year was 1846, and our would-be hero was a Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis. Semmelweis was a man of his time, according to Justin Lessler, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Semmelweis considered scientific inquiry part of his mission as a physician. Semmelweis considered scientific inquiry part of his mission as a physician. It was a time Lessler describes as "the start of the golden age of the physician scientist," when physicians were expected to have scientific training. So doctors like Semmelweis were no longer thinking of illness as an imbalance caused by bad air or evil spirits. They looked instead to anatomy. Autopsies became more common, and doctors got interested in numbers and collecting data. The young Dr. Semmelweis was no exception. When he show

Your Health The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives January 12, 2015 3:22 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition By Rebecca Davis The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives Listen &middot; 7:17 7:17 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> < iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/375663920/376660081" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript

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