Sanitation Conquered Infection Disease Long Before Antibiotics, Vaccines

[Literally]

I think some people here will enjoy this. Wasn't sure where to post it.

How sanitation conquered disease long before vaccines or antibiotics

Most histories of medicine give the spotlight to vaccines and antibiotics. They’re the most effective medical treatments; prior to their introduction, there was little a doctor could do for an infected patient.

But to really answer the question, we should look at mortality rates over time, by disease where possible, and correlate reductions in mortality to specific interventions effective against specific classes of disease. Otherwise we run the risk of assuming that just since something is in all the histories, it must be the most important (leading me to then feature it prominently in my history, thereby perpetuating the cycle).

So I started looking into the data and interpretations of it. And the surprising thing I found is that infectious disease mortality rates have been declining steadily since long before vaccines or antibiotics.

 

[Insaneacinamide]

 

[tankasnowgod]

I think some people here will enjoy this. Wasn't sure where to post it.

How sanitation conquered disease long before vaccines or antibiotics

Really good writeup.

One thought, the "Spanish Flu" in 1918 also happened in the last year of World War I. Not only might it have created and/or set back some of the sanitation efforts of the time, but the constant stress might have compromised a lot of people's immune systems.