If my initial post about how plumbers saved more lives than doctors seemed like a diss track, this one rightly points out and blames doctors for the death of patients. It was widespread negligence and every doctor was involved in it.
It was 1847 and the profession of medicine was starting to be defined in the public space. The features commonly define doctors today like the fact that we wear stethoscopes everywhere were becoming commonly placed.
At the same time, the midwifery profession was also taking its course and in a lot of ways, it was the preferred choice for delivery for so many women.
In the air was the rumour that women who chose to see the doctor for delivery were dying at a higher rate than those who chose midwives. It was also known that doctors were trying hard to have women deliver in their centres but many would decline.
Modern day many would ask, who was spreading such a dangerous rumour? Who is spreading such misinformation and lies about the practice? Just like nowadays when medical distrust starts to form, it starts in the public, creates a fire and ends in the public.
There was no one to hold responsible, it was deeply entrenched, it was the zeitgeist.
It was so common that the young newly trained doctor, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis also picked up on this. Rather than point at the women who preferred midwifes as ignorant he tried to ask if it was true. Little did he know that by asking these questions and trying to find the answers he would uncover the biggest (if not the first) medical conspiracy of the time.
In this post, we will talk about what this conspiracy was and the significance of it all to the world of medicine and the world as a whole.
Was it true?
In a world where everyone is concerned about their truths, it's awesome to know that there was a time when "the truth" existed. But just like in these times, the truth in the past was not settling.
How could this be? The truth is supposed to set you free as the Christians say. But in order to be free you have to see all that you have been a slave to and no one wants to be told that they are a slave.
So who was wrong? Was it the general public bathed in the ignorance of the 19th century or was it the whole medical establishment at the time?
The reason why the medical establishment has continued to grow has been because the truth and the science are one and the same. Trying to fit in new truths to where science ends is the duty of the scientific leaders and when this fails to happen we are left with information that is unuseful to the lies.
We have already seen how the separation of good water from bad water was enough to sustain the ancient Mesopotamians with no knowledge of what was going on or why they did it other than it is the right thing to do.
Why then did it cause so much of a stir when Dr Ignaz Semmelweis pointed out that there was something wrong with doctors using the same hands they used to do autopsies to take deliveries?
Starting from waterborne disease, Cholera was thought not to be as a result of unclean water but of unclean air known as "miasma". It was believed that by simply drawing blood from the body you could treat diseases.
Probably the most ridiculous sounding of them all was the use of lobotomies and hysterectomies to treat mental health conditions such as depression and hysteria respectively. As an added bonus, we still do hysterectomies using the same name as we did before...I really think that name should be changed but of course, all that is coming from my 21st-century social media "boycott everything I don't like" mind.
I say ridiculous sounding because at the time these ideas seemed reasonable. Regardless of who you were in the world, you would have had to rely on this or even less sophisticated means for survival.
Maybe those who named the uterus removal procedure as a means to treat hysteria "hysterectomy" didn't know that they were wrong but the doctors who went on to practice it knew that this procedure has nothing to do with hysteria but left the name that way. Maybe it is a warning to how far away we can stray from the truth.
The major cause of death for the women in the maternity wards at the time was Peuperal sepsis or Childbed fever as it was called at the time. The ratio between the doctor's maternity where deliveries would be performed after studying dead bodies to Maternity wards where none of that was done was 5:1.
It was not just rumours flying around in the general public, it was true. Women would die 5 times more whenever they had deliveries at doctor led maternities.
Dr Ignaz was shocked at this finding but when he tried to present his data he was shunned by the medical elders of the time. His constant insistence on this theory eventually led to his death by these same medical elders.
What is the New Mid-Wife Hypothesis?
In the last post, I will be writing about the time doctors lied and I will be talking about every young doctor around the world who gets sucked up into the lies. Don't worry, it's not what you think but if I gave any hints there wouldn't be a need to write the next post.
I have already revealed to you that doctors have not saved as many lives as people attribute them to. These posts are not intended to disrespect the profession but to bring back a valued tradition of scepticism in the practice of science and medicine.