From Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking

We've been told to wash our hands when handling food for sanitary
reasons. Seems like hand washing was not a big deal years ago.

Semmelweis’s Handwashing to Prevent Childbed Fever
Ignaz Semmelweis confronted lethal hospital infections with a simple,
testable idea. Working at Vienna General Hospital in 1847, he observed
that women in the clinic staffed by physicians and medical students died
of puerperal fever at rates around 18%, while those in the midwives’
ward had far lower mortality. After linking the deaths to doctors moving directly from autopsies to deliveries, he required handwashing with chlorinated lime before examining patients. Mortality in his ward
dropped dramatically, from about 18% to roughly 1%, a change he
documented in detail as evidence that hand hygiene could prevent
childbed fever.

Instead of embracing the data, the Vienna Medical Society dismissed his handwashing protocol as “quackery” in its 1848 proceedings, rejecting
the notion that invisible particles carried on doctors’ hands could
cause disease. Later accounts of Semmelweis’s 1847 observation emphasize
how his insistence on chlorinated lime clashed with entrenched beliefs
about miasma and professional authority. The stakes were literally life
and death: had his findings been accepted earlier, countless women might
have been spared fatal infections. Only with the rise of germ theory and antiseptic surgery decades later did Semmelweis’s ridiculed insight
become standard medical practice.
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From Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking

On 2025-12-09 12:47 p.m., Ed P wrote:

We've been told to wash our hands when handling food for sanitary
reasons.  Seems like hand washing was not a big deal years ago.

Semmelweis’s Handwashing to Prevent Childbed Fever
Ignaz Semmelweis confronted lethal hospital infections with a simple, testable idea. Working at Vienna General Hospital in 1847, he observed
that women in the clinic staffed by physicians and medical students died
of puerperal fever at rates around 18%, while those in the midwives’
ward had far lower mortality. After linking the deaths to doctors moving directly from autopsies to deliveries, he required handwashing with chlorinated lime before examining patients. Mortality in his ward
dropped dramatically, from about 18% to roughly 1%, a change he
documented in detail as evidence that hand hygiene could prevent
childbed fever.

Instead of embracing the data, the Vienna Medical Society dismissed his handwashing protocol as “quackery” in its 1848 proceedings, rejecting the notion that invisible particles carried on doctors’ hands could
cause disease. Later accounts of Semmelweis’s 1847 observation emphasize how his insistence on chlorinated lime clashed with entrenched beliefs
about miasma and professional authority. The stakes were literally life
and death: had his findings been accepted earlier, countless women might have been spared fatal infections. Only with the rise of germ theory and antiseptic surgery decades later did Semmelweis’s ridiculed insight
become standard medical practice.

I'll have to remember that the next time I deliver a baby.

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From Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking


Ed P <esp@snet.n> posted:

We've been told to wash our hands when handling food for sanitary
reasons. Seems like hand washing was not a big deal years ago.

Semmelweis’s Handwashing to Prevent Childbed Fever
Ignaz Semmelweis confronted lethal hospital infections with a simple, testable idea. Working at Vienna General Hospital in 1847, he observed
that women in the clinic staffed by physicians and medical students died
of puerperal fever at rates around 18%, while those in the midwives’
ward had far lower mortality. After linking the deaths to doctors moving directly from autopsies to deliveries, he required handwashing with chlorinated lime before examining patients. Mortality in his ward
dropped dramatically, from about 18% to roughly 1%, a change he
documented in detail as evidence that hand hygiene could prevent
childbed fever.

Ever see the movie "The Louis Pasteur Story" starring Paul Muni?
Handwashing and delivering babies with dirty hands and instruments
was one of his battles.

~
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From Newsgroup: rec.food.cooking

On Tue, 9 Dec 2025 12:47:29 -0500
Ed P <esp@snet.n> wrote:

We've been told to wash our hands when handling food for sanitary
reasons. Seems like hand washing was not a big deal years ago.

Semmelweis’s Handwashing to Prevent Childbed Fever
Ignaz Semmelweis confronted lethal hospital infections with a simple, testable idea. Working at Vienna General Hospital in 1847, he
observed that women in the clinic staffed by physicians and medical
students died of puerperal fever at rates around 18%, while those in
the midwives’ ward had far lower mortality. After linking the deaths
to doctors moving directly from autopsies to deliveries, he required handwashing with chlorinated lime before examining patients.
Mortality in his ward dropped dramatically, from about 18% to roughly
1%, a change he documented in detail as evidence that hand hygiene
could prevent childbed fever.

Instead of embracing the data, the Vienna Medical Society dismissed
his handwashing protocol as “quackery” in its 1848 proceedings,
rejecting the notion that invisible particles carried on doctors’
hands could cause disease. Later accounts of Semmelweis’s 1847
observation emphasize how his insistence on chlorinated lime clashed
with entrenched beliefs about miasma and professional authority. The
stakes were literally life and death: had his findings been accepted
earlier, countless women might have been spared fatal infections.
Only with the rise of germ theory and antiseptic surgery decades
later did Semmelweis’s ridiculed insight become standard medical
practice.

Ans stay off cruise ships the Norovirus surface incubation epicenter of communal vomit.
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