Features

The Semmelweis Reflex is a reflex-like rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs, or paradigms.

Semmelweis was a Hungarian doctor

• He worked at Vienna�s General Hospital, an important research hospital, in the 1830s-40s
• In Vienna, 2,000 women/year died from childbed fever
• In 19th-century Europe, childbed fever killed more than a million women
• The mortality rate for women giving birth in his ward, staffed by doctors and students was 15%. In line with other hospitals at the time, but fairly horrific
• The mortality rate in a 2nd ward at the hospital, attended by midwives, was 2%