ScienceEurope
Vaccines and antisepsis
Doctors stop killing their patients
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Semmelweis had shown as early as 1847 that handwashing halved puerperal fever, but was dismissed and died in an asylum — one of medicine's most uncomfortable examples of how slowly a field can accept inconvenient data. Improved hygiene, clean water and vaccines are probably what has saved more human lives than anything else in history.
For children
Once it was understood that disease is caused by microorganisms, surgeons began washing their hands and sterilising their instruments. Deaths after surgery fell dramatically. Pasteur also made vaccines against anthrax and rabies.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org