Talk:Contemporary reaction to Ignaz Semmelweis

False claim?

It is therefore necessary for the physician to disinfect their hands before every examination and not, as Semmelweis thought, only after visits to the morgue. If this was true, then the midwives' clinic would have similar mortality rates: the midwives didn't wash their hands between examinations. 68.52.140.34 (talk) 01:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree, this last sentence sound totally unreasonable and incompatible with the story which says that the two clinics had different rates of mortality — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.233.127.5 (talk) 21:31, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Tag {cleanup-title} - (title not WP)

The page was tagged by Wloveral (talk) {cleanup-title} on 02:22, 1 June 2008.

You tagged the page {cleanup-title} on 02:22, 1 June 2008. Why? The tag is not self-explanatory. Please be specific. I dont understand your reasoning. I have created this discussion page where you may reply. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Want to change title to Handwashing and asepsis or Semmelweis and handwashing. Any comments? Prashanthns (talk) 10:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Prashanthns, thanks for the suggestion. The main page is Ignaz Semmelweis where all handwashing is explained. For a modern-time reader is would be highly surprising that Semmelweis' finding was rejected because it purportedly was unscientific. I believe this info would clog the main page, therefore this subpage. - Just like I created the Historical mortality rates of puerperal fever subpage - also not to clog the main page. However, this page's focus is rejection as unscientific and for that reason I suggest it should be prominent in the title.

But again, my main question, why would the title not be WP - what is the problem? - then perhaps I could come up with something else. Power.corrupts (talk) 11:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I think the present title does not aptly indicate the subject. It looks more like a phrase or a clause, rather than a title. Also, it is too long. (IMO)the title is trying to convey too much, and could almost be the whole first line of the article itself! I think a shorter title would do the article good. Prashanthns (talk) 13:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I was the tagger. What I should have indicated is that the article's title is both too long and too difficult for searching. Semmelweis' full name should be included in the title with a term such as antisepsis or asepsis. My concern is to make the article findable by a user wanting information. Too much information in WP is hiden under titles that do not contain the right key words. User Prashanthns has some good ideas.--Wloveral (talk) 17:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, now I understand your concerns. I did chose the title quite carefully in the first place however, and I am not quite sure if your arguments hit the nail. First, it would be improper for the title to include terms such as antisepsis or asepsis - because these concepts were not known at the time; it would be an anachronism. And not the least, the page is not about antisepsis or asepsis - it's basically an epistemology article. Second, if "Ignaz Semmelweis" must be in the title, there are few options before the title becomes "too long" (where is that WP naming convention anyway). Most people know him only by "Semmelweis" and there is an important redirect to "Ignaz Semmelweis". There are also spelling inconsistencies, sometimes in Hungarian it seem to be "Ignác". It would also be inconsistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names): Using a full formal name requires people to know that name, and to type more. A solution could be "(Ignaz) Semmelweis rejected" but that would miss the "unscientific" part which is the basic of this article. It would be inconsistent with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) - I will give this more thought later. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wloveral, I checked your edit history for the date you tagged this article. You have been extremely productive with page edits every few minutes, I counted 43 edits in just one hour 02:00-03:00. Assuming that you sometimes read articles without actually editing them this implies that you only glanced at my article before suggesting a rename. This also explains why you left no note on the discussion page. Why this enormous haste? I would never suggest renames (or merges for that matter) unless I read the whole thing thoroughly, gave it consideration, and then crafted a discussion entry presenting my points. Your did the same thing with Gerechtigkeitsgasse, a Swiss street name which I think is fully WP:title policy-compliant Please be sensitive, that your tags and comments tax real people's real time out there. I also leave this note on your discussion page because it may be of interest to other wiki contributors. Power.corrupts (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The page is now sort of mediocre quality and I have deleted the tags. I believe this is the best title and in compliance with WP conventions. I am open for suggestions and leave the messages for all wiki users to leave a comment (be specific) on the issue, if they so wish.Power.corrupts (talk) 14:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggested merge

I don't understand why this is separate from Ignaz Semmelweis. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I agree. Place {{merge|Ignaz Semmelweis|date=June 2008}} on the article's first line and state your reasons on this talk page. Miracles happen. --Wloveral (talk) 20:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The main page Ignaz Semmelweis is now 46 kilobytes long and will (if it grows) soon receive an automated message of considering breaking it up in smaller sections. I also believe this is a speciality discussion, which the gereral reader might not value - I was for the same reason I created the Historical mortality rates of puerperal fever subpage - it would kill the main page. I value suggestions, but perhaps I may suggest that this page is first developed as I intended and thus reaches some state of completion - then we can deal with the trivia. This page is under construction. I realize that I have spent my weekend wiki-time reading fairly comprehensive WP:naming convention and writing a long discussion page, and quite regretably, not providing encyclopedia content, which was my intention. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Was there any effort made to trim excess prose from that article? Phlegm Rooster (talk) 10:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have purged text from that article, but of course ended up writing much more that was deleted. There is no excess prose. Power.corrupts (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

POV issues

I have added the {{POV}} template to this page as I do not believe it entirely conforms to Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy - in particular, it makes use of editorialising phrases like 'strange claim', 'blatant failure', 'the embarrassing nature of the flawed critiques', 'it may seem absurd...' and 'it is ironic that...'. These are generally to be avoided, see WP:Words to avoid. I suggest that the article be rewritten in places to take a more neutral approach; it should be possible to objectively criticise the reaction to Semmelweis' research without using such POV terms. Terraxos (talk) 22:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand your concerns about using "blatant" etc, DragonflySixtyseven already removed them. I belive the word "strange" is justified in the lede, to provide the context of the subject of the article, and today, it is indeed a pretty strange story, bordering absurd. That is precisely why it is such a wonderful perplexing story. I have taken the "irony" point from the (very good) Carter reference; and it is indeed an irony, that Semmelweis' positivst contemporaries rejected Semmelweis' (positivist) observational evidence, because they perceived him as a speculative non-positivist(!) While "irony" can be used as value word and therefore be POV, this is not so in this case, because it is an irony in the factual sense of this word. With these edits, I have removed the POV tag Power.corrupts (talk) 09:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Another POV issue: the article seem one-sided to me, in that it justifies the rejection of the main point Semmelweis was making: i.e., that he had found a way to reduce the incidence of childbed fever significantly (perhaps even drastically). The rejection of his claims borders on an accusation of pseudoscience.

Was Semmelweis right about anything? Did he say that there was an invisible substance on the hands of interns conducting autopsies? Was that invisible substance infecting and killing women patients? Did the handwashing technique he imposed reduce patient mortality?

If the answer to all the above questions is yes then in what way would his work be considered unscientific? Or unworthy of further research? --Uncle Ed (talk) 00:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This is precisely what fascinates me about the story, this is the crux of this and the main Semmelweis article. It is trivial that we are all a product of our own time, and largely oblivious to the underlying paradigms that shape our understanding of the world. Thomas Samuel Kuhn has argued that science advances through periodic revolutions, I believe most people nowadays consider this far too simplistic, but the Semmelweis story surely qualifies as a strong support of this revolutionary view. So, yes to all your questions, Semmelweis was right. From our vantage point of today, it would be self-evident, that he was right. Of course! But to his contemporaries, top professors in the world's most learned circles of the time, he was dead wrong, a fool. I sure understand why DragonflySixtyseven calls this a "blatant failure" - but accept it is a POV word which must go.

You suggest another POV issue: "the article seem one-sided to me, in that it justifies the rejection of the main point Semmelweis was making". I believe this is off-point. The article should not "justify" anything, or elevate a "truth" - and I don't think it does. Rather, it should enable the reader to understand how this could happen. Semmelweis' claims just ran against all conventional medical wisdom of the time. Semmelweis' contemporaries were no fools, and it is important to understand how it made perfect sense to them, to denounce Semmelweis. This is not a POV issue. Hopefully, it is food for thought -- in 100 years from now, what will people then find laughable about our views of the world? I can recommend the small Carter (2005) book. It's a gem, and it includes the story of another individual, Carl Mayrhofer, initially a critic, whose career was also detroyed, because his scientific work eventually corroborated Semmelweis' findings. Power.corrupts (talk) 09:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What Semmelweiss claimed to have done and to have observed ran against all conventional medical wisdom of the time. Does this mean that the scientific establishment accused him of fraud? (Of faking the results of his 'experiment'?) Or were they just saying, in effect, "The results you got are impossible. We don't need to check them."? Is it typical then, that the scientific mainstream will ignore or repudiate results which run counter to conventional wisdom? If not, then when did scientists begin subjecting their theories to a regimen of testing? When (and in what fields) did falsifiablity come into vogue?

I'd like to see this article tell us more about the reasons Semmelweis' contemporaries had for denouncing him. It would be interesting to see how this compares with the last few decades, when we are (I suppose) more enlightened and open-minded. --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It's more subtle than fraud. Falsification came into fashion some 100 years later with Karl Popper. I believe that what you ask for is already in the article here and to some extent here. It would be difficult to add more, given MOS requirements that articles should be factual. Adding more could turn it into an essay-like thing. There are already three major articles on the subject. Wouldn't you think so? Power.corrupts (talk) 13:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Concepts of scientific procedure were rudimentary at best. Once something was excepted it was like spitting at your father to question received wisdom. Science was more like politics, religion.... change was slow and discouraged. Now we except new scientific knowledge almost instantly - except in some areas where feelings get hurt or money is envolved. We have advanced considerably - but not all the way.159.105.80.220 (talk) 15:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

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It's still not evidence based

It still isn't. I feel like this man. A number of people still feel like this man. 2A00:23C6:1E82:8601:6D74:CBB7:5CD7:A414 (talk) 04:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)