You’ll need to read the full Ignaz Semmelweis story for this to make sense. If you’re not an Oddballs subscriber, sign up here.
After his death, Semmelweis’ body was sent to the Vienna General Hospital for an autopsy. He was taken apart and diagnosed in the same place where he cracked the code of childbed fever.
His wife was told he died from a blood infection stemming from a hand injury. The symptoms of his infection so closely matched those of childbed fever that some have noted the “poetic symmetry” of his life and death. The hand he washed, killed him. He prevented infection and lost his life to it.
But Semmelweis’ end had as much tragedy as poetry, and his death is more complicated. The details are murky but evidence suggests he was beaten by the asylum staff and left with untreated wounds. His funeral was small. None of his family was there, and among the few attendees were brothers that some researchers described as, “ … among Semmelweis’s bitterest enemies.”
As sad as that ending is, Semmelweis’ story grew to legend. This was largely because his ideas were correct, but I believe something else added to his mystique. Semmelweis had a hoard of quiet admirers.
I haven’t found proof of this, but those working closely with him would have seen evidence that would have been hard, if not impossible to deny because there’s a detailed log of his exploits. He was able to solve childbed fever in part because the Vienna General Hospital kept excellent records. After his death, the childbed fever mortality rate at a clinic he had led increased six-fold. But there wasn’t anything to gain by speaking highly of him, and in certain circles, there was a lot to lose. Better to put your head down, stay silent, and move on with your life, even if you respect the guy.
Was it a combination of guilt and respect that brought his opponents to his funeral? What if those same feelings — even if unacknowledged — seeped into the office gossip? Did the staff performing the autopsy choose to highlight the hand injury and infection to create a touch of a storybook ending to an otherwise tragic end? I like to imagine Semmelweis’ former colleagues retelling his story, and like a game of whisper down the lane, it slowly grows into a myth that matches their hidden opinion of him.
Oddballs have a crowd cheering them on, but it’s often filled with silent supporters.