Germs...
Dr Ignaz Semmelweis at Vienna General Hospital was in charge of obstetrics.
One of the two delivery rooms was staffed by nurses and midwives, and the other by Doctors and medical students.
At the time 20% of women died of puerperal fever a few days after delivery. But the Doctors room had twice the death rate of the nurses room.
In 1847 he figured out lack of hand washing was the culprit and instituted a hand washing routine which cut the death rate from 20% to 1%.
Yet it wasn’t until 15 years later Louis Pasture alerted the world to invisible dangers.
And 20 years later Joseph Lister clued the medical profession and the world to the danger of germs and importance of cleaning.
What’s the reason for the delay and deaths of countless people?
Ignaz Semmelweis was an asshole, a tactless, difficult, angry man who lacked people-skills.
He berated any and all who questioned him and refused to publish his findings because it was "self evident”.
The moral of the story is no matter how smart you are don’t be an asshole or nobody will listen to you.
If they do hear / overhear, you they won't believe what you say.
You'll get no credit for your brilliant thinking and die a pauper, alone in an unheated room with one bare lightbulb and no curtains.
You have been warned.