Why did doctors refuse to wash their hands? A new study explains
Throughout history, groundbreaking scientific discoveries have often faced resistance, not because they lacked evidence, but because they challenged established beliefs. In the 1800s, the Hungarian doctor Semmelweis made a life-saving discovery: if doctors washed their hands, fewer mothers died of childbed fever. But instead of accepting his idea, why did so many doctors resist? A new article explores why.
Niklas Juth, co-author of the study.
Semmelweis believed that tiny particles from dead bodies were causing postpartum infections, also known as childbed fever. But at the time, scientists did not have the germ theory of disease, so his idea seemed strange.
The authors of this new study, published in the journal Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, argues that the doctors rejected his findings not because of weak evidence, but because they did not fit the accepted way of thinking. While some researchers say Semmelweis worked like a modern scientist, testing and rejecting ideas, the authors of this study believe that science often follows established traditions, making it hard for new ideas to be accepted.
“We argue that the major reason for the resistance was eminence-based, rather than evidence-based, and induced by the publication of preliminary and suboptimal results,” says Niklas Juth, Professor of Medical Ethics, Research Leader at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics at Uppsala University, and co-author of the study.
One lesson from this history is that new medical discoveries might face less resistance if they focus on results from neutral clinical trials, rather than being tied to an unproven causal hypothesis. That way, even ideas that challenge the norm have a better chance of being accepted.
Do you want to know more? Read the article: Lynøe, N., Juth, N. & Eriksson, A. The disservice of publishing preliminary results based on a premature hypothesis – Semmelweis’ ordeal revisited. Med Health Care and Philos (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s11019-025-10257-8
By Fanny Klingvall