Maddie, Sify here with a science history episode that you might have missed when we dropped it a year ago

But is still plenty relevant in this pandemic. It's all about

Handwashing and how it became a tool to fight the spread of disease. It's kind of a wild story

Remember do it often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Okay, here's today's show

You're listening to shortwave

From NPR

We take it for granted now that handwashing helps keep us healthy

But somebody had to figure that out and most of the credit goes to one guy a

Hungarian doctor named Ignats Semmelweis. All right, Donna are you comfortable? Are they do they have you all set up?

Let me just drink some water. Purdue University professor Donna Tulitsicki has been digging a little deeper into his story

So basically if I mess something up terribly, we'll just do that again. Yes, and you will be ejected from the studio by your seat

So it'd be very quick interview

No, it was not a quick interview

And that's because the history of handwashing is complicated. I mean think about it

It's kind of amazing that people figured this out in a time when most people thought disease was caused by things like bad air

Until Ignats Semmelweis as the story goes a story I first heard in grad school

Solved a mystery that changed everything, but that's not the whole story

I'm Maddie Sophia today on the show the history of handwashing and why according to professor Donna

I have been telling the story wrong

For years

All right, so the story begins in this time of crisis

We're in Vienna. It's 1844 and we're at the largest maternity hospital in the world

...