Doctors Didn’t Wash Their Hands

It’s a wonder humans made it through the centuries with so many of these terrible hygiene practices, but perhaps the worst of all was that doctors routinely never washed their hands prior to helping a patient. This included during operations or other procedures where the doctor’s hands were touching an open wound. As one could guess, this often led to many infectious diseases killing the patient. It wasn’t until the research of Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis in 1846 where he discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by disinfecting his hands before assisting in a child’s birth. His antiseptic procedures were originally mocked by contemporary doctors, but became widely accepted after Louis Pasteur confirmed his germ theory.