It's good to wash your hands before examining women in labor

Hungary has issued a coin commemorating the obstetrician who discovered hand-washing as a way to prevent infections.

 

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Ten years ago, by the way, the Austrian Mint issued a €50 gold coin that honored Semmelweis (image from muenze-oesterreich.at). The piece shows his portrait on one side, and on the other side a view of the Vienna General Hospital where he worked for a couple of years. And you also see how important washing your hands is. Semmelweis was one of those whose achievements were not really honored during their lifetime. In fact, he was moved to a psychiatric hospital, and the circumstances of his death are somewhat nebulous ...

Christian

 

It's not really funny but it sounds like the medical establishment washed their hands of him. That's really sad.​

 

I reckon that discovery is deserving of a coin.
I guess the next series will commemorate the guy that discovered the rubber glove.

 

Semmelweis is not as famous as the ones he preceded in the knowledge of the Germ Theory of Disease. He was a few years in discovery before Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur who were in countries more famous for science. So yes, although they seems somewhat lessened by current disease prevention such as CRISPR cas9 discoveries, they were the start, and deserve every bit of honor . We can find the same in Astrophysics, Brain functions by William Penfield probing the human brain in the 40s while the patient is awake is probably known only to a few on the forum, but many have had his principles used by neurologists on them. Mojica, the Spanish geneticist, over 20 years ago discovered CRISPR, which is used today to alter deleterious genes in humans and to design specific vaccines for individuals with special genetic diseases and will be someday a common statement, " I am on CRISPR treatment."
So these early Men and Women who initiated modern sciences are deserving of the honor, even though they are not Americans or Currently known.

All of these are mentioned in most modern Microbiology or Disease books in college.

Jim