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Ferenc Kumin, Hungary’s Ambassador in London, unveiled the first Ignác Semmelweis statue in the United Kingdom at the Queen Mary University of London on Wednesday.
Professor Márta Korbonits, Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal of the university respectively, and Professor László Rosivall from Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest also attended the ceremony, daily Magyar Nemzet reported.
László Rosivall, chairman of the Semmelweis Memorial Committee, said that there are now 24 statues around the world commemorating Semmelweis and his seemingly simple, yet life-saving discovery.
“Today, with hand sanitizers in virtually every shop since the Covid epidemic, it is almost unbelievable that in the mid-1800s, even medical experts did not accept Ignác Semmelweis’ claim that washing hands with chlorine water in maternity wards could significantly reduce the risk of puerperal fever,” Magyar Nemzet writes. “Gentlemen cannot get their hands dirty – and doctors are gentlemen, was one of the not very scientific counter-arguments. Although Semmelweis himself had successfully used this early method of hand disinfection in his own hospital, it was not until much later that the world took notice of his discovery,” the newspaper recalled.
Featured photo via Facebook/Embassy of Hungary in London