Heretic: One Scientist's Journey from Darwin to Design

by Matti Leisola

IN 1847 A HUNGARIAN MEDICAL DOCTOR, IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS, NOTICED that many women died after childbirth of childbed fever. After investigating the situation more closely he started to suspect that this was somehow connected to doctors who came directly from autopsy to examine the women after birth. Semmelweis suspected that the doctors brought something on their hands that caused the childbed fever. His suspicions intensified when one of his colleagues got similar symptoms after cutting his finger during an autopsy. After he ordered doctors to wash their hands with chlorine water, the patient death rate plummeted. In spite of this clear evidence that Semmelweis was on to something, his colleagues and the larger scientific community did not take him seriously. He was humiliated and, growing increasingly bitter and erratic, was lured by a colleague into an insane asylum. When he tried to leave, he was beaten so severely by the guards that he died a few days afterward. Years later Semmelweis was vindicated when the role of bacteria in disease became clear. The term “the Semmelweis reflex” was coined in honor of him and as a warning to scientists. It refers to “the rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs and paradigms.”1