Psychology has a 'Semmelweis reflex': the tendency to reject new evidence that clashes with established beliefs.

1847

It is named after the doctor whose call for handwashing saved mothers' lives and was ridiculed by his peers.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Semmelweis tells doctors to wash their hands1847 · Vienna. In a Vienna hospital, mothers on the doctors' ward died of fever far more often than on the midwives'. Ignaz Semmelweis made doctors wash in chlorinated lime after autopsies and deaths fell to 1–2%. Yet many colleagues rejected the idea that a gentleman's hands could carry disease.

19th century

More amazing facts

• 1846 In Australia a camel shot its owner.
• 1846 · 2011 Since its discovery Neptune has gone round the Sun just once.
• 1848 The Communist Manifesto and the California Gold Rush began within weeks of each other: gold was found at Sutter's Mill on 24 January 1848, and Marx and Engels's manifesto came out in London that February.
• 1848 · 1860 Phineas Gage carried around the iron rod that had gone through his head.
• 1849 · 1850 Chopin's heart lies apart from his body, in Warsaw, in a jar of alcohol, probably cognac.
• 1849 Abraham Lincoln is the only US president to hold a patent.

All amazing facts (1058) →