For a long time it was believed that things burned because of phlogiston, the flammable spirit of matter; or that surgeons, being gentlemen, had no need to wash their hands to prevent infections in their patients. Good thing we no longer think that way… Right?
“Everything was in doubt; everything seemed inexplicable; everything was uncertain; the only unquestionable reality was the great number of deaths.” A sentence written more than 160 years ago, yet one that relates in many ways to the reality we are living through as a result of the pandemic.
The first and most obvious relates to the legacy of its author, Dr. Semmelweis. The quote is from the monograph in which he recounts the path that led him to explain the high number of deaths caused by puerperal fever, and above all the revolutionary solution he recommended. Although posthumous, the recognition of Semmelweis was lasting, and to this day handwashing is the first line of defense against all infections, including, of course, Covid-19.
There is a second connection, less obvious than the first but with deeper implications. Semmelweis’s sentence exudes the despair of a scientist who watches with dismay as his theory, based on solid data and following a rigorous scientific method, is rejected by his colleagues and by society at large. But it also describes a fundamental aspect of science: methodical doubt and uncertainty as a habit.
To contemporary ears, doctors’ rejection of handwashing as prophylaxis, based on arguments such as “it is well known that diseases spread through unhealthy air” or that it is pointless since “by definition a gentleman cannot have dirty hands,” seems tragicomic.
Yet our contemporary wisdom has feet of clay, and it is being exposed precisely now that, forced by a pandemic, we see the Minister of Science on the front page for the first time and morning shows are filled with data and not just opinions. But accustomed to the immediate satisfaction of its needs and to simple answers, society does not understand doubt as a method and is confused when theories considered true until yesterday are questioned. “So, does the lockdown work or not?”
Beyond expert opinion on the pandemic, science provides a method that, through ongoing scrutiny and methodical discussion of the causes of social phenomena, makes it possible to design better public policies. At the same time, through constant review of results, it achieves more efficient implementation of them. Our current challenge is for science to permeate and find a permanent place, so that the condescending smile of future society is reserved for an era when public decisions were made without any scientific rigor.
In times of uncertainty we look for immediate, infallible and unchanging answers; we turn to the scientist as an almost fatherly figure of authority, but we resist science. We reject Semmelweis once again.
Javier Ramírez
Executive Director
Know Hub Chile
