Nineteenth Century Medical Guide

Chapter 61 Randomized Control of 59.100 Voles
The failure of Semmelweis was actually the product of a combination of various factors.

Like Laszlo, he was Hungarian, could not speak French or Latin, and was not proficient in Austrian German.This is very unfavorable in the German, French and Latin-dominated Austrian medical world. In addition to the lengthy writing time, he also has to face other negative feedback brought about by grammatical errors.

Some people even question the author's ability in medicine because of his poor writing ability.So much so that Semmelweis was very disgusted with publishing his own research report.

Secondly, those obstetricians who think highly of themselves use their status and knowledge as weapons to wantonly attack other colleagues, intentionally or unintentionally forcing others to stand in order to achieve the purpose of suppressing their opponents.

Unfortunately, Semmelweis classified all other obstetricians into the hostile camp with the incident of "maternal death caused by not washing hands".No one wants to be called an orphan maker under this kind of argument.

After a long period of fighting alone, a third reason emerged, which was Dr. Semmelweis' depression and paranoia.

The academic world is often full of various opinions, and if there is agreement, there will naturally be opposition. It is better to be questioned than to be ignored.When others ignored the factual data he gave, Semmelweis did not stabilize his mind, nor did he further present research and experimental data, but slammed his critics with a large number of open letters.

His reply was bitter, desperate and angry, and came across as "extremely controversial and offensive" in the eyes of those who retorted. 【1】

The subjects included well-known obstetricians in Europe, such as: Speight, Scanzoni, Siebold, the current obstetrics director of the Municipal General Hospital Marcus, and even Klein, his own obstetrics tutor, and "all other obstetricians".

"You actually agree with a medical traitor?" Marcus couldn't believe his ears, "He even publicly stated that his mentor, and also my mentor, the outstanding Austrian obstetrician John Klein is a murderer! "

"We can't object to every point of view of a person just because he's bigoted by nature."

"ridiculous."

In Marcus's eyes, not to mention discussing with each other, even sitting in the same room with Carvey is a kind of desecration of his own identity.So as soon as he realized that he was wasting time, he immediately got up and was about to leave the dean's office.

"Doctor Marcus, please stay." It was the dean who spoke this time.

Although he played a role in the departure of Dr. Semmelweis, today he is on Kawi's side.From speaking for this young man before, now he has completely examined the ownership of these two rooms from the perspective of Carvey.

"I still hope that you can wait until Mr. Carvey has finished speaking before making a decision."

Marcus was surprised by his attitude: "Mr. Dean, he and Semmelweis are in the same group. In their eyes, you and I are both murderers."

"Ok, I know."

"You know you still speak for him?"

"It's not a question of right and wrong." The dean immediately suppressed his smile, coughed twice, and explained seriously, "I am not only a doctor, but also the dean, and I must consider the overall situation of the entire hospital."

Marcus really didn't understand how such a brat could become a key person affecting the overall situation, but he knew very well in his heart that the dean was indeed a guy who could fall on two sides.

Otherwise, this welfare hospital would not be able to continue operating long ago.

In fact, for the director, the most important thing is that the hospital can continue to operate, as long as it is beneficial to the hospital, we can talk about anything.

Semmelweis publicly made radical remarks at that time, not only other doctors could not tolerate him, even his own tutor could not tolerate him.It aroused public anger, even if the dean wanted to help him, there was no reason.

But Carvey is different. What he wants is not the recognition of his views, but the laboratory.It doesn't matter whether Marcus agrees with it or not, as long as the laboratory is given to him.

If you don't give it, you can only put pressure on it.

Laszlo is considered a good card. The dean doesn't think that Mr. Laszlo will recover the investment for Carvey, but he is not afraid of [-] but just in case. He is not willing to bet, and there is no need to bet.Anyway, Marcus is easy to deal with, just draw a few big pies.

"You need to understand that Carvey is a friend of Mr. Laszlo." The dean pointed out the relationship directly, without nonsense, "Mr. Laszlo's 20 kroner sponsorship has not yet arrived, and the hospital will expand the maternity ward when it arrives."

This is a good pie, at least it can make Marcus smell the fragrance: "Don't wait for Ignatz to come and snatch it from me again."

"It's okay, Mr. Laszlo has specially prepared a copy for Ignatz, and I won't compete with you."

"Heh, Ignatz, who is naturally arrogant, will also please the capitalists?"

"Perhaps it was at the beginning. If it hadn't been for saving Mr. Laszlo's life later, the sponsorship he received would only have been [-] crowns."

"now what?"

"15."

"15 and robbed me of a room."

"That's Ignatz's money, not Carvey's."

Marcus couldn't understand the interests involved. Since the dean promised to expand the maternity ward, he could only agree: "Since you have said so, I'm afraid I have no other right choice but to agree."

After speaking, he was ready to leave.

"Dr. Marcus doesn't want to see the contents of the experiment?"

"Hehe, what's so good about an experiment that tries to prove that doctors are murderers?"

"The teacher will get it wrong. I'm not interested in proving such illusory conceptual problems." Carvey said, "I'm only interested in the fact that the first maternity ward has such a high mortality rate. If Teacher Marcus can Given a definite reason or reason, I can abandon the experiment."

Marcus wouldn't fool around with Carvey, but he listened to his experimental protocol out of curiosity.

Semmelweis discovered the common phenomenon of puerperal fever in many hospitals through a lot of research and comparison. 【2】

He even once agreed with the theory of dismantling and building hospital wards [3], but this method would cost a lot of money and be too short-lived, so it was impossible to establish in the Municipal General Hospital.

Semmelweis was unable to express his arguments in standard language at the beginning, and could not bear the rebuttals or even personal attacks of these people, so that he became everyone's enemy when he used the same method.

In fact, it is not difficult to verify this point of view, a simple randomized comparison will do.

In modern times, experiments that ordinary students can do were just in their infancy at that time, and even many university professors did not have this kind of experimental concept. 【4】

In the end, it was decided to give Carvey ten days. If no convincing results were obtained after ten days, the room would have to be returned.

Marcus agreed, but remained uninterested in the experiment.However, in order to confirm that Carvey did not cheat, he sent an assistant to "help".The position of an obstetric assistant is actually higher than that of Carvey, but he has to be a tool person in the laboratory.

"Come, come, if you want help, you have to be obedient and wash your hands!" Carvey took a large basin of clean water and poured a lot of white powder into it, "After washing, you can work."

The tool man is Savarin, a Serbian, graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade with a doctorate.He is very dissatisfied with his attributes as a tool man, but there is nothing he can do about it: "I really didn't expect that I would play a game of vole with a child without a medical degree."

Carvey soaked his hands in bleach hand sanitizer and said with a smile: "You can quit now, I can do it alone."

"You think I don't want to?"

Savarin is still resistant to bleach: "Are you sure this liquid is not harmful to the skin? The smell is too pungent."

"I have diluted it." Carvey entered the next clear water basin with his hands, "Please be sure to wash your forearms according to my requirements, so that they do not reach your elbows."

"So complicated."

"Then please go back."

"Forget it." Looking at the dazzling array of experimental equipment, Savarin still succumbed to his thirst for knowledge.

After washing with alkali soap, washing with water, disinfecting and immersing in water, the two finally started the field mouse experiment.

First measure the body temperature of all the voles, and then inject the internal tissue fluid of the corpses stored for a period of time into the voles of the observation group through Ignatz's syringe [5].The observation group will be infected with the bacteria one after another in less than a week, resulting in elevated body temperature, anorexia, decreased activity, and finally death. The disease development is basically the same as that of puerperal fever patients.

The experiment process is not complicated. Carvey stays here for a short time every day, once in the morning, noon and night, totaling no more than 3 hours, and Savarin takes care of the rest of the time.

As a result, Savarin broke his glasses, and also the dean who got his experimental report ten days later: "Is it really caused by the autopsy?"

"Well, because the pathogens were originally brought by those medical students."

Of course the dean didn’t believe it, because Semmelweis had put forward this point of view at that time, and was refuted by Klein, the director of the obstetrics department at the time: “Judging from the monthly mortality rate in the obstetric ward, it’s the maternal death rate during the winter and summer vacations. During the peak period, you said that medical students caused puerperal fever, but I do not agree with you."

Carvey presented Semmelweis' evidence again: "There must be a reason for the data fluctuations."

"Why is that?"

"Because the University of Vienna Medical School has hosted vacation studies since the last century." Carvey said his guess, "During the summer vacation and winter vacation, a large number of students from other nearby medical schools will flock to Vienna. The medical school provides anatomy classes, and Our Municipal General Hospital has taken on half of the internship opportunities.

In addition, there are much fewer doctors in the second ward than in the first ward, and midwives are mainly used to deliver babies. "

The intern has become a bridge between the corpse and the mother. The dean is definitely unwilling to admit it, but the experimental samples given by Carvey are very sufficient.

The control group obtained by random classification survived well during these ten days, and only 3 died.In the observation group, 41 animals died within ten days, and 9 of the remaining 7 animals did not return to normal living habits.

"This is my experiment report, which contains detailed experiments and the autopsy report of 41 dead voles." Carvey said, "In addition, I also have a microscope research report, which fully describes what happened in the body fluid of the corpse. There is something, and I think the results will be a big surprise to the entire medical community."

The dean thought that this experiment was just a young man's nonsense. For Laszlo's investment, it's okay to give him the right to use it for ten days.

But now it seems that the development of things is a bit unexpected.He is also a physician who graduated from medical school. Looking at this experimental report written in standard Latin, he had to believe in Carvey's point of view: "What do you want me to do? Help provide a platform to publish the report?"

"It's not necessary, I will publish the report." Carvey said, "I just hope that the doctors in the hospital can wash their hands."

"This..." the dean put down the report, "it's a bit difficult to tell the truth."

Carvey knew there was resistance: "If this report is published, there is no way to change it?"

"Why do you think Semmelweis left? Is it because he couldn't learn German? He was an assistant just like you." The dean sighed without too much explanation, "I advise you to become famous It’s better not to publish this kind of stuff before.”

Carvey still underestimated the difficulty of changing everyone's minds, but fame is only temporary.Since the experimental results are enough to convince others, he must let the two laboratories belong to his name forever.

"Two are too many, let's have one. I have to give Marcus an explanation."

Seeing what Carvey wanted to say, the dean interrupted: "You have been spending time in these two laboratories recently, and you have done less surgery. Have you ever thought that Ignatz suddenly lost an assistant? What will become of it?"

He did not go for the operation, but he knew that there were fewer people in the ward, and the operation was not smooth: "Well, I have been to the ward, and the situation is not very good."

"The operation failed again this morning. I heard it was a hemangioma, and the clipping of the blood vessel was not done well." The dean looked at Carvey, "I don't understand surgery, and I don't understand the compatibility between the surgical assistant and the surgeon. I just hope you can go back and help him quickly, after all, the time for the cesarean section is approaching."

In the past ten days, Carvey has been busy with experiments, and Ignatz just gave up the position of assistant to Hills who wanted to go further.However, the results of the seven knives were not good. Judging from the results, there were four cases of failure, including three cases of death.Compared with the previous week when Carvey was an assistant, the record was extremely poor.

The only ones that succeeded were two amputation sites and one anal fistula. Even Ignatz's proficient lithotripsy failed.Even if Carvey was not there before, he never did this.

Nora's due date is approaching, and she needs surgery at any time, but Ignatz is in such a state that everyone is sweating for him and her.

"Go talk to your teacher, he doesn't listen to others."

"He's already called me in the morning, there's a lithotripsy in the afternoon, and I'll be on stage," Carvey said with a smile, "and I've convinced him to use a new way of preoperative preparation, just as it was written in the report. "

(End of this chapter)