Every year 7 lakh people in the world lose their lives due to not washing their hands, the practice of hand washing started 150 years ago.

The entire world was faced with a terrible infectious epidemic like Corona. Even now, new variants of Corona are being found in different corners of the world and predictions are being made of more terrible epidemics and diseases in the near future. Due to the bad habits of people not washing their hands, these diseases have increased and there are chances of increasing in the future. A recent report said that waterborne diseases, diseases caused by improper sanitization and diseases caused by not washing hands are leading to death in the world. 14.50 lakh people in the world lose their lives due to these types of diseases. 7 lakh people worldwide die every year from infectious diseases spread due to poor hand washing. According to a report, 4000 people die every day due to diseases caused by not washing their hands and improper hygiene. Out of these deaths, 1000 deaths are of children under five years of age.

People started following Indian tradition since Corona period. The practice of shaking hands when meeting each other in the world has changed. People are saying hello. The practice of this namaste has been going on for ages in India. In India, it has been believed since ancient times that shaking hands is like giving each other diseases. Apart from this, if we look at the western practice of human history, even in AD. This is mentioned in the year 700 BC. Apart from that, even in the Babylonian period, there was a belief that disease was spread by hands. During the corona period, the public discipline of washing and sanitizing the hands started. Before that the discipline of hand washing was common among people but only before eating or after using the washroom.

From 2008, awareness about hand washing was started

Since 2008, Hand Washing Day was started on 15th October to make people aware about hand washing. Then gradually this operation increased and people started paying more attention to washing hands and keeping clean. If we look at the medical history of this hand washing tradition, we realize that it started by accident 150 years ago. The practice of hand washing was started by a doctor while working in the maternity ward. In the 19th century, an experiment was started by a doctor to keep hands clean by accident, and people, especially doctors at that time, became aware of keeping their hands clean and sanitized. Even then this was not widely accepted or followed by the society. It also took two decades for people to accept it in normal life.

Concern spread as more women died in the maternity ward

Ignaz Semmelweis received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1846. He then started working at the Vienna General Hospital. At that time, his job was to check the patients of the ward before the arrival of senior doctors, to record any problems and to keep the medical data of other departments. His hospital had two maternity wards. Ignaz noted that a ward where deliveries and monitoring were performed by male staff had a higher death rate. On the other hand, the death rate was higher in wards maintained by female doctors and nurses but not as much as male wards. Ignaz noted that while male and female doctors were experts in delivery, women were more likely to die from childbed fever or puerperal fever after childbirth. Ignaz started a detailed investigation in this direction.

Doctors did not clean their hands after performing the autopsy

While Ignaz was investigating in this direction, his doctor friend Jacob died of childbed fever. Jacob used to perform autopsies on women dying of this fever. One day a scalpel used in an autopsy struck Jacob and he became infected and died. This incident worried Ignaz even more. He noted that doctors and medical students start their day with an autopsy and go directly to the labor room. They do not clean their hands properly. Ignaz then reasoned that the infection of women dying of childbed fever was transmitted through the hands of doctors to other women who died a day or two after delivery. Based on this logic, he made it mandatory for every doctor and medical student to wash their hands with chlorinated water. He installed tubs of chlorine water in laborrooms and autopsy rooms in which deliveries or autopsies were allowed only after hands had been cleaned.

A unique result was obtained but the doctors mocked Ignaz

The decision made by Ignaz proved effective. As he made handwashing with chlorine mandatory, the mortality rate of women in the hospital began to decline. The death rate from childbed fever dropped by 90 percent in the first month and there were no deaths in the second month. Gradually, only women started dying from self-inflicted infections, but the spread of infection was stopped by doctors. Doctors did not accept his accidental discovery. Doctors did not clean their hands properly and they considered it an insult. They mocked Ignaz. Ignaz's discovery was not accepted by the medical community at the time.

Ignaz was imprisoned as insane and died

Ignaz Semmelweis was then widely protested in Vienna. He left Vienna for Budapest. There in the university and in the medical hospital he worked in the same direction and got miraculous results. He wrote a book called The Etiology Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever in 1860. In it, he explained the causes of the disease and the benefits and results of washing hands with chlorine water. The book was opposed by the medical world. Ignaz was considered insane and imprisoned. There they were flogged. Ignaz died only two weeks after his imprisonment. His autopsy revealed that he died of the disease he fought to prevent all his life.

Father of hand hygiene and savior of mother

Surprisingly, Ignaz's death was not noticed by anyone. The medical world had forgotten him. After Ignaz's death, Doctor Janos Discher was appointed as his successor at Pest University Budapest. During his tenure again the deaths of mothers in the maternity wards increased sixfold but the doctors ignored it. He did not acknowledge Ignaz's inventions and hard work. At that time Ignaz was completely ignored in the medical world of Vienna and Budapest. Two decades after his death, his method of keeping hands clean was accepted. Ignaz's discovery was accepted by the new medical world of the time and he was hailed as the Father of Hand Hygiene and Savior of Mothers. Since then his work is remembered to this day. Even today, Dr. Ignaz's contribution is commemorated and applauded on Hand Washing Day in the month of October.

How clean are our hands?

A study has found that the habit of hand washing has increased by 85% after Corona. Some other studies do not support this statistic, but acknowledge that people have been keeping their hands clean. Here we will learn about hand washing habits around the world and how people maintain or avoid this habit.

A history of keeping hands clean

Experts believe that one should not forget the habit of washing hands even if one misses bathing once in a while.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis proved that keeping hands clean reduced childbed fever in women.

Childbed fever increased in women during labor due to streptococcus

The incidence of childbed fever was six times higher among women who gave birth in a hospital compared to those who gave birth at home

Doctors did not clean their hands before delivery after autopsy

• 1865 - Ignaz's words are rejected by professionals. He was sentenced to imprisonment for misrepresenting the people of his profession
• 1879 - Louis Pasteur made similar findings regarding the spread of childbed fever and streptococcus.
• 1906-1922 - Typhoid Mary infects 47 people with salmonella due to unsanitary hospital conditions and causes 3 deaths

Hand hygiene and health

• 1 cm in hand There are approximately 1500 bacteria in the space
• Keeping hands clean can prevent 1 in 5 respiratory illnesses
• Keeping hands clean can prevent 1 in 3 diseases like diarrhea
• Researchers believe that one million deaths a year can be prevented if everyone keeps their hands clean
• Only 3 out of every 5 people have proper hand washing facility

80% of diseases spread through touch

The hands are the most dangerous of microorganisms. Keeping hands clean is the most important thing in keeping the disease at bay. Hand hygiene is very important for health. It is equally important to wash hands after washing them.

• Wet hands can spread 1000 times more bacteria than clean hands
• 85% of microorganisms are spread mostly by hands
• An average person has about 3000 bacteria on his hands
• The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria than the toilet seat
• On average, there are 26,000 bacteria on currency notes
• On an average , there are 30,000 bacteria in a space equal to 1 unit of swab on a smartphone