TU || Flax Golden Tales || Four Levels of Interpretation Lesson 32

Level: B.A/ B.B.S || Lesson 32 Scientific Inquiry (Carl G. Hempel, Germany 1905-1997)

Words Meaning

Inquiry = information

Foul = stinking

Illustration = examples

Distressed = troubled

Fatal = deadly

Attribute = cause of something

Ravage = ruin

Confinement = living alone

Adverse = harmful

Desperate = troublesome

Epidemic = disaster

Refute = deny

Notorious = bad person

Spare = to leave

Sacrament = religious ceremony

Clutch = hold

Scalpel = knife

Straw = dry grass

Foul = dirty

Distinctive = clear

Broaden = widen

Putrid = rotten

Agonizing = painful

Cadaveric = dead human body

Spare = to leave

Desperate = hopeless

Conjecture = hues

Adhering = attached

Drown = sunk

Colleague = friends working together

Cadaver = dead body

Summary

Ignaz Semmeweis was a Hungarian physician who involved in the child bed fever at Vienna General Hospital from 1844 to 1848. He found that more women in the First maternity Division of the Viena General Hospital died of Childhood fever than in the second maternity division of the same hospital. He felt sad when lots of women suffered from the fatal illness know as childhood fever.

The mortality rate increased in first division. He tried to find out and he hypothesized, the cause was epidemic influences. The second hypothesis was that overcrowding in the first division was the cause of higher death rate. Another guess was that in the first division rough examination of patients by medical students was injurious enough to cause child fever. In 1846, a commission was made to find out real fact. They say that the high death rate was the result of the injuries from rough examination of the medical students. But he didn’t agree. He said that the injuries from the natural process of birth were much deeper than the rough medical examination. Midwives cared equally to all and the number of medical students was reduced. But death rete remained the same.

There were psychological explanations too. The priest used to visit a dying woman ringing a bell, and might have frightened other woman then Semmelweis requested the priest not to ring the bell but death rate didn’t decrease. Once Semmelweis’ friend was wounded in his finger by a student’s surgical knife while he was performing an autopsy later on his friend died. Then he formed hypothesis that the fatal illness of his friend was caused by the cadaveric matter that the surgical knife has introduced into his friend’s blood stream. Then he concluded that the women in the first division died of blood poisoning and foul material from dead body was responsible for childbed fever. From that day he told his colleagues to wash their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime before making an examination. The death rate among the women who delivered the babies out of hospital was also low.

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Four Levels of Interpretation

1. Literal Comprehension

This text was written by Carl G. Hempel in which Hempel writes how Semmielweis made effort to decrease death rate of child bed fever. Ignaz Semmeweis was a Hungarian physician who involved in the child bed fever at Vienna General Hospital from 1844 to 1848. He found that more women in the First maternity Division of the Viena General Hospital died of Childhood fever than in the second maternity division of the same hospital. He felt sad when lots of women suffered from the fatal illness know as childhood fever.

The mortality rate increased in first division. He tried to find out and he hypothesized, the cause was epidemic influences. The second hypothesis was that overcrowding in the first division was the cause of higher death rate. Another guess was that in the first division rough examination of patients by medical students was injurious enough to cause child fever. In 1846, a commission was made to find out real fact. They say that the high death rate was the result of the injuries from rough examination of the medical students. But he didn’t agree. He said that the injuries from the natural process of birth were much deeper than the rough medical examination. Midwives cared equally to all and the number of medical students was reduced. But death rete remained the same.

There were psychological explanations too. The priest used to visit a dying woman ringing a bell, and might have frightened other woman then Semmelweis requested the priest not to ring the bell but death rate didn’t decrease. Once Semmelweis’ friend was wounded in his finger by a student’s surgical knife while he was performing an autopsy later on his friend died. Then he formed hypothesis that the fatal illness of his friend was caused by the cadaveric matter that the surgical knife has introduced into his friend’s blood stream. Then he concluded that the women in the first division died of blood poisoning and foul material from dead body was responsible for childbed fever. From that day he told his colleagues to wash their hands in a solution of chlorinated lime before making an examination. The death rate among the women who delivered the babies out of hospital was also low.

2. Interpretation

This text tries to make conscious us that small mistake by the medical workers can harm more. Many women as well as his own friend lost his life. If they had washed their hands and other instruments with chlorinated lime, the patients couldn’t have been dead. Next things the writer also tries to show that scientific discovers needs much labor to get success. It takes place with process.

3. Critical Thinking

The language used in the text is form science. For the students of humanities and management, it might be difficult to understand. When some people die in course of experiment, the scientists don’t worry if they get success. Here, Ignaz Semelweis after performing autopsy, with his colleagues directly came to examine the women in the First division without washing hands. He did this to know the result.

4. Assimilation

This text taught me that one should do work until one gets success in his/ her work as a scientist does. We should be hopeful for what we are doing. I realized that the scientist who invented different things for the welfare of human beings, they had to do much effort. We should give them respect. They are the real Gods on the earth.

Possible questions

1. Name at least 3 of Semmelweis’s hypothesis. How did you test them?

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