The incompleteness of the theory is completely irrelevant. He published results and reproduced his findings. He correlated a rise in mortality to the time the necropsies started, and he demonstrated a decrease in mortality after implementing his hand sanitization method twice. That's more trustworthy than quite a bit of what passses for science even today. Doesn't matter how much of an asshole he was, when faced with that undeniable evidence clearly showing that women were dying less the last thing those scientists should have done was dismiss it out of hand and condemn women to death for their negligence. To me it sounds like they deserved every bit of denouncing they got and then some.
All of this matters. You write as if he provided a succinct record of a series of experiments he conducted; in fact, he infamously wrote ponderous and impenetrable litanies on the precise cadaveric origin of the particles he thought he was combating. I understand the message board rhetorical strategy of trying to put me on the other side of the aseptic revolution, but (1) no and (2) that has nothing to do with what I'm writing. The bar you need to clear here is much higher than "Semmelweis was correct about chlorinated lime".
> he infamously wrote ponderous and impenetrable litanies on the precise cadaveric origin of the particles he thought he was combating
Which doesn't invalidate the fact that women provably died less after his methods of combating those particles were implemented and published. Faced with that evidence, they should have accepted the method even if they don't agree simply because you can't argue with results. They could have saved women and followed up with further study on the exact nature of the problem which would only become clear when Pasteur came along. They chose to institutionalize him out of embarrassment.
I'm not "putting you on the other side" of anything. I don't agree with your minimization of the guy's achievements nor with your characterization of him as "crazy".
The scholarly debate about Semmelweiss is whether he had syphilis or young-onset dementia. He was not committed to a sanitarium out of pique over his demands that people chlorinate water. Again: you can just look this stuff up!
These points might seem kind of nitpicky, but Semmelweis has become a sort of patron saint for brooding nerds with strong but iconoclastic ideas, a shibboleth for "history will show I was right all along". Semmelweis was not, in fact, right all along, and his evident failure to persuade his peers --- stemming from what was in a sense an opposition to the germ theory of disease --- probably set science back a little bit, on margin. Not by much, though; Semmelweis was in his time one of several people expounding the same intervention.
Whether or not it happened due to "cadaveric particles" is a completely irrelevant detail. People died less. That's enough for public health policy decisions even today. The fact his contemporaries did not accept it would be criminal negligence today.
The "scholarly debate" about his mental state is mere speculation. Here's the first result of looking it up:
> It is impossible to appraise the nature of Semmelweis's disorder.
> It might have been Alzheimer's disease, a type of dementia, which is associated with rapid cognitive decline and mood changes.
> It might have been third-stage syphilis, a then-common disease of obstetricians who examined thousands of women at gratis institutions
> or it might have been emotional exhaustion from overwork and stress.
You clearly believe the first two options. I don't believe that even for a second.
> He was not committed to a sanitarium out of pique over his demands that people chlorinate water.
Here's the second result of looking it up:
> With this etiology, Semmelweis identified childbed fever as purely an iatrogenic disease — that is, one caused by doctors.
> Friedrich Wilhelm Scanzoni von Lichtenfels took personal offense at this, and never forgave Semmelweis for it
> Scanzoni remained one of the most ardent critics of Semmelweis.
The third result of looking it up:
> Semmelweis also angered his conservative medical colleagues — and especially his boss, Johann Klein, who was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
> Klein rejected Semmelweis' arguments concerning cleanliness, as did his colleagues.
> He probably felt angry that this precocious Hungarian was making orthodox practices and practitioners look not only ridiculous but also dangerous.
> It was Klein, incidentally, who had insisted that medical students examine cadavers in the first place, and it was he who had relaxed constraints on conducting vaginal examinations during labor.
> Semmelweis seemed to be saying that Klein's policies were the direct cause of the epidemic
> When Semmelweis' temporary appointment came up for renewal in March 1849, Klein blocked his application, despite appeals from senior medical colleagues
> The second part [of his publication] attacked his critics. This was the part that got him into serious trouble. Many leaders in obstetrics in Europe were vilified.
> While the book collected all of Semmelweis' investigations into one volume for the first time, it met with harsh reviews and had little impact in preventing the dreaded puerperal fever.
> Probably as a consequence, Semmelweis' mental state deteriorated.
> He roamed the streets of Budapest muttering to himself and distributing pamphlets directed against those who refused to follow his teachings.
> He seemed to swing from periods of excitement and energy to periods of paralyzed depression. By July 1865, he was clearly deranged.
They clearly hated this guy and found several ways punish him for his insubordination. It's entirely possible and very likely that this was the reason he ended up in the asylum where he was killed.
1. Childbed fever was not, in fact, caused by cadaveric particles.
2. Nobody here disputes aseptic technique.
3. You've misconstrued the point about Semmelweis' commitment. Alzheimers, syphilis, exhaustion: the point is that he was symptomatic, as you yourself just quoted.
I don't think anybody else is reading us at this point.
