Wiki Rabbit Hole
“In the Ottoman Empire, the role of executioners was given to the imperial guard, called bostanji (literally, “gardeners”). Senior officials who were sentenced to death were personally executed by the head of the guard (Turkish: bostancıbaşı). By the late 18th century, a custom had developed where grand viziers could avoid execution by racing the bostancibaşi to the Fish Market Gate, the traditional place of execution. If the deposed vizier reached the Fish Market Gate before the bostancibaşi, his sentence was commuted to mere banishment. But if the condemned man found the bostancibaşi waiting for him at the gate, he would be executed. The last recorded person to participate in a race with the bostancibaşi was grand vizier Hacı Salih Pasha who, in November 1822, outran the bostancibaşi and saved his life. He was so widely esteemed for winning the race that he got appointed governor general of the Damascus province.”
“Semmelweis demonstrated that the incidence of infection could be drastically reduced by requiring healthcare workers in obstetrical clinics to disinfect their hands. In 1847, he proposed hand washing with chlorinated lime solutions at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had thrice the mortality of midwives’ wards. The maternal mortality rate dropped from 18% to less than 2%, and he published a book of his findings, Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever, in 1861.
Despite his research, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum, he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating.
His findings earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory of disease, giving Semmelweis’s observations a theoretical and scientific explanation, and Joseph Lister, acting on Pasteur’s research, practised and operated using hygienic methods with great success.”
“After his fourth and final attempt at the shengyuan exam, he had a nervous breakdown, during which he had visions of a heaven where he was part of a celestial family. Influenced by the teachings of Christian missionaries, Hong announced to his family and followers that his visions had been of God, his father, and Jesus Christ, his brother. He created the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and waged war on the Qing dynasty, devastating parts of southeast China which would not recover for decades.”