AI Practice Knowledge BaseCounterintuitive Facts (23): Why Do Experts Lead the Persecution of Those Who Tell the Truth?
PremiumThe Semmelweis Reflex: Admitting 'I was wrong' is harder than admitting 'I'm a bad person'
I. 1847, Vienna General Hospital. Mothers in the maternity ward were dying in large numbers. Childbed Fever death rate was as high as 18%. One in five mothers died here.
II. A young doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, noticed a strange phenomenon: Mothers delivered by doctors had an 18% death rate. Mothers delivered by midwives had only a 2% death rate. Why?
III. He began investigating. He discovered: doctors dissected corpses in the morgue in the morning, then went directly to deliver babies in the afternoon. Without washing hands in between. Midwives didn't dissect corpses, only delivered babies.
IV. Semmelweis proposed a hypothesis: Doctors' hands carried "cadaverous particles" that infected the mothers. His solution was extremely simple: Wash hands with chlorine solution before delivering babies
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