Posted on 11/21/2017 5:06:55 AM PST by x1stcav
At the time, the medical community was unaware of the existence of germs and didn’t know how infectious diseases were passed on. As a result, cleanliness was not a factor in surgery, leading to gruesome sights and harrowing results.
Surgeons — then regarded as low-status workers and often paid less than the men employed to pick lice off hospital beds — didn’t bother cleaning the blood and guts from surgical tables or their instruments between operations. No one in the operating theater wore gloves, and “it was not uncommon to see a medical student with shreds of flesh, gut or brains stuck to his clothing.”
Hospitals were so deadly that surgeries done at home — usually on one’s kitchen table — had a much greater survival rate than those done in a house of medicine.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Thanks. I wonder what I’m doing wrong when I search? Missed the completely.
Semmelweiss discovered that washing his hands in a "chlorinated lime" solution (calcium hypochlorite, closely related to bleach) between examining his post-partum obstetrical patients drastically cut the "childbed fever" death rate. "Childbed fever" killed so many mothers in that day that women were afraid to have their babies in the hospital. "Childbed fever" was rare in home births, but common in hospitals.
For this, Semmelweiss was hounded, cursed, and ostracized. He ended up in an insane asylum, where he was beaten to death by a guard.
Because, as everyone knew, "childbed fever" was caused by bad air, or was simply a curse women had to live (or die) with. That was the "settled science" of Semmelweiss' day.
Sound familiar?
You have to get lucky with FR. Have to think of all the right possible words and hope they are in the keywords that users added. It’s not your fault.
I smell another attempt to build up another culture by claiming they “invented” something prior to some other. When it turns out INNOVATION is the real important part.
Sounds like this Hungarian (Austrian ethnic?) may have found out something but for whatever reason wasn’t able to “innovate” so that it became common practice. Lister did. Or at least, his British peers allowed it, whereas perhaps Hungarians failed to be so open.
(re-post from the older thread, which I accidentally focused on)
Actually that was an exact match word for word with a title search. I normally do a title search first then a title search using words from the middle of the title in case something was changed at the beginning or the end. So in this case, for instance, I would do a title search on the full title then the words dirty little secret. That usually does the trick and I rarely dupe anyone.
“At the time, few in the medical community took him seriously, disbelieving that these invisible so-called “germs” existed.”
And so it goes today...
Thanks for the tip.
...and the $15 Band-Aid :)
Do a title search not a keyword search
As soon as I read the title of the article/post, the first thing that popped into my head was Dr. Joseph Lister. His is a fascinating story.
This is why the Admin Mods insist on posters using the exact title of the linked article.
History of this sort always makes me appreciate how good we have it today.
Our problems are nothing compared to what people experienced a relatively short 150 years ago.
I usually do two searches, one in keyword and one in title...............
Very interesting, thanks.
I search using a word in the title aka “dirty”
He was one of the first to use both antiseptics as well as anesthesia in his surgeries. Not so surprisingly, his patients found that his surgeries not only didn't hurt, but THEY SURVIVED! This helped lead to the popularity of the Mayo Clinic today.
An interesting display there was the microscope Dr. Mayo bought to aid in his analysis and record keeping. (Mayo keeps detailed patient records of outcomes, allowing doctors to look back at successful, as well as less successful procedures.) The microscope cost $600. Dr. Mayo mortgaged his house for ten years in order to be able to make the purchase.
But, I have it on good authority (Facebook) that germs and viruses were designed back in the Dark Ages specifically to target and kill of American Indians. Why else would such nasty things be invented way back then!
Sarc/off
If discovering that previous thread in your search would have dissuaded you from posting your thread, I and others would have missed the underlying article entirely and been the poorer for it. So, I suggest that in the future you search in order to link to the other article, but please do go ahead and post anyway—if the article was important enough for your attention, please offer it to us as well.
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