The statue of Ignác Semmelweis was inaugurated on December 20th at the Gynecological Clinic of Jagello University in Krakow. Besides the city and university leaders, Dr. László Rosivall professor, the president of the Semmelweis Memorial Committee also attended the ceremony.

“The bust created by the fund-rising of Semmelweis Memorial Committee will now be seen at one of the central locations in the Krakow Clinic, where doctors and patients can be in a live connection with Semmelweis’s spirit every day”, emphasized Adrienne Körmendy, the Hungarian Consul General in Krakow.

Dr. Laszlo Rosivall said: Semmelweis was born 200 years ago but his findings and doctrines are still true today. In his speech he pointed out that if doctors, hospital staff did not adhere to the rules of infection prevention he had formulated, mortality would be much greater. The president of the memorial committee says Semmelweis’s tragically ending career has a current general message. 

It is not by accident that the term “Semmelweis-reflex” has been used to indicate situations in the Anglo-Saxon language territory when one has proven a new fundamental recognition for mankind, but most people respond to this with resistance, emphasized Laszlo Rosivall, adding that promoting Semmelweis’s oeuvre is important because the doctor’s findings are used everywhere but they are not familiar enough everywhere.

He listed the cities of the world in which a memorial monument was set up for the Hungarian doctor and Dr. Rosivall also stated that it is worthy and equitable that the list of these places was extended with Krakow.

Resource: MTI