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And Semmelweis is a perfect case against being an asshole who's right: He was more right than wrong (he didn't fully understand why what he was doing helped, but it did) but he was such a horrible personality and such an amazing gift for pissing people off it probably cost lives by delaying the uptake of his ideas.

But this is getting a bit off topic, I suppose.

Or you could say it the other way around: Even leading scientists are susceptible to letting emotions get the best of them and double-down defending their personal investments into things.

"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck.

Was soap often used prior to the mid 1800s?

That was later; earlier in history doctors (or "doctors" if you so insist) did not wash their hands.

I was mainly pushing back on the idea that something as seemingly obvious as hand washing was the thing that made surgery safe. It took quite a bit more than just simple hand washing.