Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician of ethnic-German ancestry, known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. He was described as the “saviour of mothers” since he discovered the cause of childbed fever (or puerperal fever) and introduced antisepsis into medical practice. The saviour of mothers later suffered from nervous breakdowns, ended up in an asylum, where he was tortured, and died a terrible death.

Born on the 1^st of July 1818, in Tabán, which belongs today to Budapest, Hungary, he was the fifth child in a grocer family. He started studying law in Vienna, then changed track and switched to medicine. Semmelweis received his doctoral degree in Vienna in 1844 and was appointed assistant at the obstetric clinic in Vienna.

At the time, maternity institutions were set up all over Europe to address the problem of illegitimate children’s infanticide (i.e. the intentional killing of infants). They were gratis institutions and were attractive to underprivileged women, for instance, prostitutes. In return for the free services, the women would be subjects for the training of doctors and midwifes. Two maternity clinics were operating at the Viennese hospital, the First Clinic having a mortality rate of 10% and the Second Clinic with a mortality rate of 4%. Since the First Clinic had a really bad reputation, Semmelweis often heard women begging not to be taken there, and some even preferred to give birth on the street. Semmelweis was puzzled that puerperal fever was less frequent among those born on the street. Semmelweis proceeded to investigate its cause over the strong objections of his chief, who, like other continental physicians, had reconciled himself to the idea that the disease was unpreventable.

Semmelweis realised that the only difference between the two divisions was that the students were taught in the First Clinic, and midwives were taught in the second, so he put forward a thesis that students might have carried something to the patients they examined during labour. One of his friends died from a wound infection during the examination of a woman who died of puerperal infection. The similarity of the two cases supported his reasoning. He drew the conclusion that students who came directly from the dissecting room to the maternity ward carried the infection from mothers who had died of the disease to healthy mothers.

He instituted a policy of using a solution of chlorinated lime (calcium hypochlorite) for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients.

The result was that the mortality rate in the First Clinic dropped 90%, and was then comparable to that in the Second Clinic. The mortality rate in April 1847 was 18.3%. After hand washing was instituted in mid-May, the rates in June were 2.2%, July 1.2%, August 1.9% and, for the first time since the introduction of anatomical orientation, the death rate was zero in two months in the year following the discovery.

In 1848, a liberal political revolution swept Europe and Semmelweis took part in the events in Vienna. After the revolution was put down, he found more obstacles in the way of his professional work: he was dropped from his post at the clinic and his application for a teaching post in midwifery was turned down. He returned to Pest in 1850 and worked in St. Rochus Hospital for 6 years. His measures reduced the mortality rate.  In 1855 he was appointed professor of obstetrics at the University of Pest. He married, had five children, and developed his private practice.

In 1861 Semmelweis published his principal work, Die Ätiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers (The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever).

He sent it to all the prominent obstetricians and medical societies abroad, but the general reaction was adverse. The weight of authority stood against his teachings.

He had a nervous breakdown in 1865. He had severe depression and became absent-minded. After a number of unfavourable foreign reviews of his 1861 book, he lashed out against critics in a series of Open Letters. His public behaviour soon became irritating and embarrassing to his associates. He began to drink and spent more time away from his family and his wife noticed a change in his sexual behaviour. He was referred to a mental institution in 1865, where he was severely beaten by guards, secured in a straitjacket, and confined to a darkened cell. Apart from the straitjacket, treatments at the mental institution included dousing with cold water and administering castor oil, a laxative. He died after two weeks, on August 13, 1865, aged 47, from a gangrenous wound, possibly caused by the beating. The autopsy gave the cause of death as pyemia—blood poisoning.

Semmelweis’ doctrine was subsequently accepted by medical science. His influence on the development of knowledge and control of infection was hailed by Joseph Lister, the father of modern antisepsis: “I think with the greatest admiration of him and his achievement and it fills me with joy that at last he is given the respect due to him.”

Featured Image: Wikicommons by npg.hu

Vitamin C is a substance of vital importance in the human body. Until its discovery, a grave nutritional disease spread across Europe. Then a Hungarian man, Albert Szent-Györgyi discovered the remedy of scurvy: the Vitamin C. And it all happened thanks to a lucky incident…

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of Vitamin C. It was first spotted among seamen, who had peculiar symptoms: their teeth loosened and bled, their limbs swelled, they felt tired easily. First they thought that the remedy was cleanness, exercise, and cheer, but by the 1700s they figured out that lemon and lime heal the symptoms. Still, on the European continent the disease was still apparent in the 1900s, the last huge epidemic broke out in 1911 in Nurnberg.

The essence of the condition was found out when a Hungarian doctor, Albert Szent-Györgyi made a groundbreaking discovery during the examination of a paprika.

Still, the discovery happened in some ironic and funny circumstances, as szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu mentions.

First of all, the examination of paprika was made possible by sailors who made the discoveries in the 15^th century. They brought paprika to the European continent in 1492. The irony in the story is that, as we have mentioned, sailors were the most vulnerable to this disease and they often suffered from this condition. And Szeged, the Hungarian city, became one of the main centres of paprika cultivation in the Carpathian Basin, where Szent-Györgyi worked as a professor in the 1930s.

Albert Szent-Györgyi began his studies at the Semmelweis University in 1911, then began his research in his uncle’s anatomy lab, but his studies were interrupted in 1914,when he had to serve as an army medic in World War I. After leaving the army (he purposely shot himself in the arm) he finished his studies and married Kornélia Demény. Afterwards, he began his research in Bratislava, then moved on to the University of Groningen, where his work focused on the chemistry of cellular respiration. This work landed him a position as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow at Cambridge University, where he received his PhD. Then he accepted a position in the University of Szeged, where he made the great discovery of Vitamin C.

So the second funny aspect of the discovery is that Szent-Györgyi did not like paprika at all. His discovery is partly a result of this. His wife packed paprika for the professor for his lunch, but he put it in his pocket, so that his wife would not scold him for not eating it. He meant to scrutinise the breathing of plant cells, but he found a compound instead: this was the Vitamin C, the lack of which substance caused scurvy. Its scientific name is antiscorbutic factor.

For the discovery, Szent-Györgyi received a Nobel Prize in Psychology or Medicine in 1937. He offered all of his Nobel prize money to Finland in 1940.

He died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA on October 22,1986. He was honoured with a Google Doodle September 16, 2011, 118 years after his birth. In 2004, nine interviews were conducted with family, colleagues, and others to create a Szent-Györgyi oral history collection.