Ananya Sri Ram – USA
Ananya is since January 2025 the director of the Krotona School of Theosophy
Some twenty years before Louis Pasteur or Joseph Lister made their name in the field of germ theory and antiseptic practices made its way into our lives, there was a Hungarian doctor from Vienna named Ignaz Semmelweis. Having graduated from Vienna Medical School in 1844, he became an assistant to Johann Klein, a professor of obstetrics at the same medical school. At the time, many mothers were still delivering their babies at home with midwives assisting them despite the new practice of mothers delivering in hospitals. The hospitals however, routinely reported that as many as 25% to 100% of the mothers delivering were dying due to “childbed fever,” known today as postpartum infection. The number of mothers who died after delivering at home or at the hospital with a midwife was much lower. No one really understood why at the time but there were many theories.
Ignaz Semmelweis, the father of handwashing
Semmelweis decided to research into why there was such a vast difference. It took him three years of painstaking work. In 1847, after losing his father, Semmelweis’ professor, whom he was emotionally close to, suddenly got sick and died as well. In his grief, Semmelweis decided to find out why his mentor died. He discovered that his friend had cut himself while performing an autopsy. The wound never healed and the professor quickly died. Semmelweis realized that the rapid deterioration of his mentor was exactly how the postpartum mothers were dying. He questioned whether the infection was coming from cadavers. At the time, it apparently was not uncommon for medical students and doctors to go from an anatomy class—which included autopsies on cadavers—to the delivery room sometimes without even washing their hands. In contrast, midwives did not perform autopsies so infection was much less.
To test his theory, Semmelweis ordered doctors and students at the hospital to adopt a handwashing procedure that included using a chlorine solution before delivering any babies. The chlorine removed any smell of the cadavers and Semmelweis thought any invisible particles that students or doctors may be carrying. He was right. The number of mothers who died from childbed fever dropped significantly.
Painter Robert Thom depicts Semmelweis (center) in the Vienna General Hospital in Austria overseeing doctors washing their hands before examining obstetric patients. Photograph by Look and Learn, Bridgeman Images
Semmelweis unfortunately never developed a theoretical justification for the drop in deaths or why the handwashing proved valuable. He made a breakthrough discovery, but either never felt it necessary to “prove” his theory with more research or perhaps did not have the capacity to do so. This, despite the encouragement of other doctors and colleagues who offered to help him get his theory and research published. Within a year of his discovery, Semmelweis was dropped from his position as assistant to Dr. Klein and the hospital stopped enforcing the handwashing technique. Twenty years later, tens of thousands of women throughout Europe were dead due to postpartum infection.
There is more to the tale which would take too long to go into but includes the rather self-destructive nature of Semmelweis due feeling like an outsider, never feeling smart enough, and projecting his anger and insecurities on others. These behaviors became worse as he got older. Biographers say he possibly suffered from Alzheimer’s or perhaps syphilis. At the same time, as is the case in many places, there was a polarization between the older doctors and the new students, between what “has always been” and “why can’t we try something new?” The older professors felt threatened by the questioning young students who were ready to think beyond what they were taught. There is the possibility that Klein felt threatened by Semmelweis’ findings especially when historical documents show Semmelweis, a blustery, difficult, and outspoken person, accused colleagues of sitting on their hands (dirty as they were) while mothers were dropping dead one after the other. Semmelweis did publish a book in 1861, but allegedly had a nervous breakdown in 1865 and was coaxed into visiting an asylum by a colleague where he was detained against his will. Sadly, he was beaten by the guards and died two weeks later after his injuries got infected.
This story came from a book called The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly. It is used to demonstrate how Will, an extraordinary impersonal force, drives evolution and the manifestation of things. Yet, due to ego and a lack of wisdom, that same Will can lose its force and dissipate, leaving one without an anchor. Aside from just one individual losing steam, the example shows how the collective or whole--which includes the mothers who died, the mothers who would potentially die, the children born to them, the families, and all the members of the medical field--were all victims because of ego and lack of wisdom. This is not to blame one person or persons but to see how what is called Collective Folly can have catastrophic effects. Collective folly is according to the book “Lacking good sense or normal prudence and foresight, a continuum of behaviors ranging from personally foolish behavior to criminality, evil, and depravity.”
There is the saying that we know what we know at the time we know it. But often we can use such statements to defend our lack of good judgment or even a type of laziness that keeps us “protected” from feeling accountable in circumstances where we feel we have no power. Power according the authors of the book describe power as “the ability, strength, and capacity to bring about change.”
We can often become caught in a situation where we ourselves have a clear idea of where we are headed, but those around us are either headed in a different direction or do not have clarity. The lack of union, cohesiveness or unity causes infighting and competitiveness, leading us astray. We lose direction and drive. We also feel like we have lost our power—our ability to know, our strength to stay with what we know and not question it. This “knowing” in a deeper sense of the term, is insight. It comes from a place beyond the everyday mind.
What is interesting about this story is that it is a snapshot of situations we experience every day, and on a larger scale, worldwide. According to HPB, Divine Will is connected to Divine Intelligence or the Divine Mind, no differently than how human will is connected to human intellect, we being the microcosm of the macrocosm. The difficulty we have with our own will is our personal ego when it decides it wants to “play God,” so to speak. Our ego is what tells us that we know better than others or know what is best, that we do not have to follow procedure, or that others must. It is the very rigidity and fixed mindedness that causes something wonderful and beneficial for others to become mired in conflict. There is a fine line between human will and ego and when will is taken over by ego it becomes desire of the most personal kind.
When we are connected to our true will, it is said we can overcome almost anything. There is a power that lies deep within us that stands calm and strong under the most trying circumstances. Will as a steady force is also where our creativity comes from. Connected to the intelligent forces around us, it is what provides us the insight to put together moments that can provide a remarkable outcome—just like Semmelweis’ insight connecting the death of his mentor to the cadavers and then to the dying mothers. It is a beautiful example of Will and Grace (not the television show) coming together to provide a remarkable moment in the history of medicine. The Will of Semmelweis researching things for three years to find answers and the Divine Grace that eventually provided the insight shows how Will and Grace seem to work in a wonderous way.
Semmelweis’ story also displays how difficult things can become when Will turns to desire. Aside from wanting to help people, life in research can become incredibly competitive instead of cooperative. It is sad that this happens even today when as a humanity we are all on the same side. As we all know in Theosophy, what we do for one helps the whole as we are one existence. The research of Semmelweis not only helped the women who survived childbirth once handwashing was put into effect, but it allowed Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister to jumpstart their own research. It was Pasteur who was able to prove the theory of Semmelweis. (Grace again makes its entrance.)
HPB states in Isis Unveiled that our Will is magic when used correctly. Many of us are strangers to our own abilities. Desire tends to rule our lives more than Will. We become blind to the whole process that is taking place around us, feel we are separate from it, and begin looking outside ourselves for something that is “closer than our own breath.”
When we begin to work with will, we may find things begin to fall into place. Will not only brings new opportunities and resources our way when we work with it, it introduces us to an extraordinary vibrancy that makes all things new. There is a sense of equanimity and love of a purer nature. The connection to our own will moves us into a space where we see where things are going astray and our action comes not from ego, but from a harmony that brings harmony to the whole, the beginning of Collective Wisdom.