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The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing
Handwashing is a simple method for preventing the spread of pathogens. It is now common practice, but this was not always the case. Advocating for it often costed a doctor his career in the 1840s. Hospitals in the early 1800s had little idea of the significance of hygiene; thus, they were often mock...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9632745/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36339162 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.979464 |
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author | Poczai, Peter Karvalics, László Z. |
author_facet | Poczai, Peter Karvalics, László Z. |
author_sort | Poczai, Peter |
collection | PubMed |
description | Handwashing is a simple method for preventing the spread of pathogens. It is now common practice, but this was not always the case. Advocating for it often costed a doctor his career in the 1840s. Hospitals in the early 1800s had little idea of the significance of hygiene; thus, they were often mocked as disease-producing incubators or as “houses of death.” Many of the ill and dying were kept on wards with no ventilation or access to clean water; hospitals were found to offer only the most basic care. The mortality rate for patients admitted to hospital was three to five times greater than that for individuals cared for at home. Doctors did not routinely wash their hands until the mid-1800s, and they would proceed straight from dissecting a corpse to delivering a baby, providing the basis for the spread of puerperal fever. Despite advances in modern medicine, healthcare providers still face the issue of infection outbreaks caused by patient care. While the body of scientific data supporting hand hygiene as the key strategy to prevent the spread of pathogens is substantial, we highlight that achieving this crucial, long-awaited breakthrough was a hard task through history. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9632745 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96327452022-11-04 The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing Poczai, Peter Karvalics, László Z. Front Public Health Public Health Handwashing is a simple method for preventing the spread of pathogens. It is now common practice, but this was not always the case. Advocating for it often costed a doctor his career in the 1840s. Hospitals in the early 1800s had little idea of the significance of hygiene; thus, they were often mocked as disease-producing incubators or as “houses of death.” Many of the ill and dying were kept on wards with no ventilation or access to clean water; hospitals were found to offer only the most basic care. The mortality rate for patients admitted to hospital was three to five times greater than that for individuals cared for at home. Doctors did not routinely wash their hands until the mid-1800s, and they would proceed straight from dissecting a corpse to delivering a baby, providing the basis for the spread of puerperal fever. Despite advances in modern medicine, healthcare providers still face the issue of infection outbreaks caused by patient care. While the body of scientific data supporting hand hygiene as the key strategy to prevent the spread of pathogens is substantial, we highlight that achieving this crucial, long-awaited breakthrough was a hard task through history. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9632745/ /pubmed/36339162 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.979464 Text en Copyright © 2022 Poczai and Karvalics. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Public Health Poczai, Peter Karvalics, László Z. The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title | The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title_full | The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title_fullStr | The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title_full_unstemmed | The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title_short | The little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
title_sort | little-known history of cleanliness and the forgotten pioneers of handwashing |
topic | Public Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9632745/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36339162 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.979464 |
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