Question

a.    

Describe the two KEY observations made by Ignaz Semmelweis’s that led him to his recommendation to prevent childbed fever.

b.   

What did Semmelweis recommend and why?

c.    

Do you think that Semmelweis’s recommendation would work for the following pathogens

i.   Bacillus anthracis as used in the anthrax attacks

ii. CoV-2

Explain your answer.

Answer 1

a.    

Describe the two KEY observations made by Ignaz Semmelweis’s that led him to his recommendation to prevent childbed fever.

Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian doctor in the year 1846, he though out of box that the illness was not an imbalance caused by bad air or evil spirits instead looked into anatomy and physiology.

He observed that the women delivered in the clinic satffed by doctors were in higher risk rate of nearly five times than those in midwives' clinic.

He also observed that atopsies were just started in clinics for detailed study of diseases and physiology.

Two things he noticed not to have effect are:

In clinic, women gave birth on their backs whereas in midwives clinic, they did by sides.

There was no relationship between bell of the priest that could terrify the women after birth that they developed a fever.

Then he hypothesized that the childbed fever wasn't something only women in childbirth got sick from and also explained that the cadaverous particles were the culprit that sticked to the doctors hand from the cadavers they dissected.

b.   

What did Semmelweis recommend and why?

Semmelweis' recommended to sanitize the surface and the hands based on his hypothesis to get rid of those cadaverous particles taht could potentially cause infection. He emphasized the staffs to clean not with just soap but with chlorine solution, one of the good disinfectants. Despite of lack of knowledge on germs on those days, chlorine was thought to be the disinfectant. The rate of childbed fever fell dramatically when he imposed this recommendation.

c.    

Do you think that Semmelweis’s recommendation would work for the following pathogens

i.   Bacillus anthracis as used in the anthrax attacks

Bacillus anthracis is the causative obligate pathogen for the disease anthrax which is a common livestock disease and a potential zoonosis that can transfect from livestock to humans.It mainly transmit via inhalation of the spores taht is aerosolized and also in contaminated materials. Studies suggest that washing the gand with antibacterial soap was only effective against to reduce the number of anthrax-like bacterial spores on hands. Alcohol based hand rub was observed to be less effective.

ii. CoV-2

Recent emerging virus that cause upper respiratory infection is termed as SARS-CoV-2 also called as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. It predominantly transmits via the infection droplets while the infected persons coughs, sneezes, or exhales. They wuickly fall on the surface and contaminate it as the pathogen is heavy in the droplets. Transmission can be controlled by both soap hand wash and alcohol based sanitizer.