LIFE’S LITTLE CHANGES

Life enhancements don’t always require large, grandiose actions. In fact, it’s the small tweaks that can often lead to the most significant of things. Take, for example, brushing your teeth. It doesn’t require much to fill your mouth with some bristles, but doing so will dramatically affect whether somebody is willing to kiss you. And a simple kiss can lead to so much more—like a relationship, everlasting love, or a cold sore. But no matter what, mighty or minuscule, the one thing that nearly all choices (and cold sores) have in common is this: Other people will have questions. Humans love having opinions, either positive or negative. Your actions—and more importantly, your choices—will be especially questioned by those who believe they know better. Even when your choice seems like a relative no-brainer. Because, well, common sense doesn’t always prevail, and we, as humans, are always learning.

In the nineteenth century (and pretty much every previous century) childbirth was an incredibly risky undertaking. Expectant mothers were susceptible to a variety of complications, including puerperal fever, a.k.a. “childbed fever,” a postpartum infection of the reproductive system due to less-than-sanitary birthing conditions. So after seeing this happen time and time again in his own obstetrics practice, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis decided to do something about it. The Hungarian-born surgeon, physician, and scientist proposed a radical new idea: Let’s wash our fucking hands before venturing into babyland.

Dr. Semmelweis simply suggested that physicians use a sterilizing or bleaching agent on their hands prior to delivery. But his handwashing hypothesis was met with extensive criticism from his obstetrical peers and the scientific powers that be (seriously, science nerds won’t believe a damn thing without numbers and verifiable evidence—kind of like a jealous, toxic ex).

Regardless, Dr. Semmelweis made the change in his own operations while working at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria. And despite a drastic reduction in infections and ultimately the mortality rates of his female patients, he was largely ostracized for the remainder of his medical career. So much so that in 1865 he was committed to a mental asylum by his former colleague, where he was badly beaten by the guards upon arrival. Subsequently, DUE TO AN UNSANITARY ENVIRONMENT, he died fourteen days later from an infection caused by the incident. He was only forty-seven.

Years later, Dr. Semmelweis’s ideas were acknowledged and deemed necessary after the French chemist Louis Pasteur published his findings on germ theory, proving that, yeah, washing your hands is a good fucking idea. So the next time you’re in the process of suggesting something new, trying something new, or becoming someone new, remember that not everyone is going to get it, accept it, or support it, but that doesn’t mean you’re not doing the right shit.