January 25, 2019 Friday
Bedtime Story
Semmelweis Analyzes the Problem
Semmelweis categorically and meticulously
began to list out the differences of practice in the two clinics.
So meticulous was he that he even included
the difference of religious practices in the two.
One thing he had ruled out was overcrowding
as a factor for these epidemics since it was evident that the second clinic had
far more crowd that the first one, both since it admitted more patients and
because it was run by mid wives than doctors.
You would remember that many or most women
would simply refuse to get admitted in the first clinic preferring the ignominy
of roadside delivery.
Climate obviously could not be the factor
(mind you those days climate was given disproportionate importance in the
etiology of diseases) since both clinics worked in the same climate.
After enlisting all such differences he saw
that the only variability of substance between the two clinics was the type of
professionals who worked there.
Both the first and the second clinic were a
part of the teaching institute, the key difference being that while the first
one was demarcated solely for the medical students the second one was allocated
to the training of mid wives.
That, of course, only deepened the mystery.
The mystery probably would have remained
unsolved when the first clue came in the form of a personal tragedy.
His close friend Jakob Kolletschka who was
a Professor of Forensic Medicine in the same Vienna General Hospital died on
March 20, 1847.
That was a moment in the life of Semmelweis
when he had become so overwhelmed from the grief of the accumulating maternity
deaths that he had left for Venice as something of a sabbatical (I wonder if such
a concept existed those days).
When the news of his friend reached him he
immediately rushed back from Venice to Vienna and I would like you to read what
Semmelweis later wrote about it as quoted in the Lancet issue of 1855.
The material is medically very relevant to
the ongoing story:
“I was immediately overwhelmed by the sad
news that Professor Kolletschka, whom I greatly admired, died in the interim.
The case history went as follows:
Kolletschka, Professor of Forensic
Medicine, often conducted autopsies for legal purposes in the company of the
students.
During one such exercise, his finger was
pricked by a student with the same knife that was being used in the autopsy.
I do not recall which finger was cut.
Professor Kolletschka contracted
lymphangitis and phlebitis (inflammation of the lymphatic vessels and of the
veins respectively) in the upper extremity.”
We shall continue with the writing of Semmelweis
in nights to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average
story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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