BLA1355

2. Science requires data.
===Ignaz Semmelweis, director of the maternity clinic at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria, is the inventor of hand-washing. While working at the hospital, he would go from dissecting a corpse to delivering a baby. The new birth of a child resulted in a brief fatality of the mother. Instead of Semmelweis washing his hands after dissecting a dead body, he would spread bacteria to the mother's open womb; this was called "childbed" fever. ===

===Semmelweis' observations led to his hypothesis that there was some form of life living on our hands and that washing our hands could kill whatever it was. We have to remember that at this time, the "germ theory of disease" was not yet created. ===

===The death of pregnant women decreased tremendously. Semmelweis didn't do any research and didn't necessarily follow the steps of the scientific method. His theory was derived from his true life, hands-on experience. ===

Bellis, Mary. "History of Antiseptics - Ignaz Semmelweis." //History of Antiseptics - Ignaz Semmelweis //. N.p., 2009. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.

4. Fight fire with fire, and data with data.
===Ignaz Semmelweis (talked about in law 2) was considered crazy by other doctors. They thought Semmelweis was mentally ill considering he thought there was life living on his hands. These doctors did not attempt to prove him wrong or right; they just simply didn't agree with him. "He lectured publicly about his results in 1850, however, the reception by the medical community was cold, if not hostile. His observations went against the current scientific opinion of the time, which blamed diseases on an imbalance of the basical "humours" in the body. It was also argued that even if his findings were correct, washing one's hands each time before treating a pregnant woman, as Semmelweis advised, would be too much work." ===

===The public soon sent Semmelweis to an asylum. At his stay, he was beaten and ironically died from "childbed" fever. After his death, doctors soon thought to themselves that perhaps there is some form of life surrounding us that could infect our bodies. ===

Bellis, Mary. "History of Antiseptics - Ignaz Semmelweis." //History of Antiseptics - Ignaz Semmelweis //. N.p., 2009. Web. 08 Feb. 2013.