Dr. Jerk: Difference between revisions

* As ''[[Cracked.com]]'' explained in [http://www.cracked.com/article_18822_5-famous-scientists-dismissed-as-morons-in-their-time.html explainedFamous Scientists Dismissed as Morons in Their Time] (and [http://www.cracked.com/article_18501_7-incredible-scientific-innovations-held-back-by-petty-feuds.html twiceIncredible Scientific Innovations Held Back by Petty Feuds]), the prevalence of this trope in the 19th century was the reason why it took so long for hygienic practices to catch on in hospitals. As medicine was seen as a gentlemanly profession at the time, doctors in that era ridiculed and attacked scientists like Ignaz Semmelweis who merely suggested that they wash their hands after handling corpses in the morgue, as it seemed to imply that they were unclean enough to kill people just by touching them. Before Louis Pasteur's germ theory proved once and for all that such basic hygiene was the right course of action, it was more dangerous to give birth in a hospital than ''in the street'' due to how rampant disease was within hospitals.