“A Great Physician”

An Old Problem

“We’ve never done it that way before. We always do it this way.” When we love our comfort zones, why force a new normal?

We never know whose life may be saved.

Meet Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor. When Dr. Semmelweis was born in 1818, 1 out of 6 mothers died during childbirth. The cause was blamed on a disease known as “childhood fever.”

Dr. S found that a doctor’s daily routine began by performing autopsies. After cutting on dead bodies, without stopping to wash their hands, doctors went to the hospital.

They examined mothers in the maternity ward, thus passing on horrible germs.

A New Solution

Ignaz Semmelweis started washing his hands with a chlorine solution. After 11 years and the delivery of 8,357 babies, he only lost 184 mothers.

His rate of mortality was 1 in 46, compared to 1 in 6 for everyone else.

In other words, in the mid-19^th century, for every 138 women who gave birth:

          23 died under traditional care.

  3 died under Dr. S.

He spent his life lecturing and debating with colleagues. “While we talk, talk, talk, women are dying. I’m only asking you to wash…For God’s sake, wash your hands.”

Doctors and midwives had delivered babies for years without washing their hands. Despite his statistical evidence, they refused to listen to this outspoken Hungarian.

In 1865, at age 47, Dr. Semmelweis had a nervous breakdown and was placed in an asylum. Ironically, he soon died of blood poisoning (septicemia).

The Great Physician

Years after Dr. S. died, his practice of hand washing earned widespread acceptance. Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory. Then, Joseph Lister found great success using proper hygiene during surgery.

Ignaz Semmelweis was a great physician.

On Easter, we celebrate that THE great physician did what had never been done before. Jesus’ death and resurrection enables us to be scrubbed clean from sin.

Christ the Lord is risen. Alleluia!

David