A doctor who championed hand-washing and briefly saved lives (2015)
I think Semmelweis is interesting for other reasons. From what I understand, hand-washing was routine in Semmelweis&#x27; time; what he specifically championed was antiseptic washing (in his case with a solution of lime). And: he was an asshole about it. He had a particular theory of why his particular routine worked, and it was the wrong one: he believed particles from corpses were becoming airborne and landing in the wounds of patients. That theory was tested and falsified by numerous infections occurring in places no corpses had been present. Challenged with countervailing evidence, he doubled down, maintaining that childbed fever was caused by the cadaveric particles generated internally by necrotizing tissue crushed during the birthing process. Through it all, he was outrageously rude, hurled insults at his colleagues, stormed into operating theaters, and generally did everything he could to make sure his life-saving contribution was ignored.<p>The rudeness is a little interesting, I guess, but the big thing for me is the idea that just a little bit of intellectual humility --- stick to the empirical observation and stop yelling at people about corpses! You almost had it! --- would have made him a household name centuries later.