Gaslighting

Modulate the message or get run out of town

If you’re ever convinced that someone is trying to tell you you’re crazy, think of Ignaz Semmelweis.

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Semmelweis was an 18th century Hungarian physician and scientist who started collecting data to figure out why so many women in maternity wards were dying from puerperal fever (known as childbed fever).

He became an advocate of doctors washing their hands and is referred to as the “savior of mothers”.

He said that doctors were spreading diseases amongst patients, sometimes killing them. The reason was because doctors were performing autopsies.

The medical establishment did not like the implication and he was fired.

Semmelweis did not respond well to criticism. He had a habit of berating those who disagreed with him.

Eventually, he developed a mental condition and was committed to an asylum, where he died.

The moral of the story: being right isn’t enough.

A lack of tact or storytelling ability will get you run out of the tribe.

Even if you are literally saving mothers of babies.