I’d bet some decent money on a toothbrush. Keep your teeth healthy and you’ve got a leg up on many that came before us. You get an inflection in your jaw and it doesn’t take much time before things go really bad.
Lots of good shouts here, but the one thing that doesn’t seem to be mentioned yet is maternity care.
In the early 20th century, if you lived to the age of 5 you had a pretty good chance of reaching retirement age despite all the tuberculosis, cholera and lack of health and safety in the workplace. The problem is that so many babies died in childbirth, which massively brought the average down. In the UK, 150 babies in every 1000 died, where now it’s less than 4. Multiply that improvement across 100 years and the whole world and you’re talking about somewhere around a billion people that survived who otherwise wouldn’t.
It’s hard to say which specific aspect of maternity care has made the biggest difference, but it’s a combination of handwashing, antiseptic surgery, ready availability of emergency c-sections, better antenatal care.
Epidemiology has got to be up there with hand hygiene and antibiotics (which we’ve abused to point that we’re facing the real possibility that they’ll soon be ineffective).
It’s a toss up between vaccinations and germ theory, and it depends on how you quantify their impact.
Vaccinations resulted in targeted disease prevention. Germ theory changed how we fight disease, how we understand disease (the idea that they are caused by microorganisms), and without germ theory antibiotics/vaccinations wouldn’t exist. Germ theory has also influenced public health measures and basically all of modern medicine.
Other people answered the more obvious answers already, but I’ll add antipsychotics. The invention of antipsychotics is what partially led to the downfall of mental asylums and allowed many people to live relatively normal lives
Comments
Just basic hygiene/sanitation
Antimalarials
I’d bet some decent money on a toothbrush. Keep your teeth healthy and you’ve got a leg up on many that came before us. You get an inflection in your jaw and it doesn’t take much time before things go really bad.
Penicillin, which led to a revolution in antibiotics. 500 million lives saved. More info here
Penicillin and vaccinations ( penicillin was discovered in 1928)
At the beginning of the 1900s, tuberculosis was responsible for about 25% of all deaths in Europe.
Vaccines are amazing, But all vaccines together might not have saved as many people as the cure for tuberculosis.
Antibiotics. Nothing else even comes remotely close.
Honestly, i’d guess vaccines or antibiotics too, hard to imagine modern life without them 🤔
Lab-synthesized insulin, maybe?
Vaccinations
Insulin
Vaccines, antiretrovirals, insulin, better sanitation/hygiene.
Clean water and antibiotics.
Statins?
Vaccines. Insulin
Soap, penicillin and ivermectin
Vaccines and antibiotics.
Penicillin and polio vax I’d say…
The randomised controlled trial
Insulin
Condoms
Tang.
Handwashing was named the number one medical advancement by doctors in the Lancet about 20 years ago.
Soap and bleach
Viagra
Lots of good shouts here, but the one thing that doesn’t seem to be mentioned yet is maternity care.
In the early 20th century, if you lived to the age of 5 you had a pretty good chance of reaching retirement age despite all the tuberculosis, cholera and lack of health and safety in the workplace. The problem is that so many babies died in childbirth, which massively brought the average down. In the UK, 150 babies in every 1000 died, where now it’s less than 4. Multiply that improvement across 100 years and the whole world and you’re talking about somewhere around a billion people that survived who otherwise wouldn’t.
It’s hard to say which specific aspect of maternity care has made the biggest difference, but it’s a combination of handwashing, antiseptic surgery, ready availability of emergency c-sections, better antenatal care.
ddt and the mosquito net
Sewers.
Maybe not medical and they were established in the 1800’s but sewers do more for our health than the entire medical community.
Mosquito nets
Penicillin
Vaccines.
I will go out on a limb and say that general public health and food safety, in particular water supplies have had the biggest impact.
Epidemiology has got to be up there with hand hygiene and antibiotics (which we’ve abused to point that we’re facing the real possibility that they’ll soon be ineffective).
Vaccines.
Malaria
Antibiotics aka 1940 is probably the top; however I want to shout out simple Oral Hydration Therapy.
1960s brought about formula that we would now call Pedialyte. It’s saved over 70 million lives and is a powerful low cost resource.
ammonia.
The Pill
Polio vaccine?
It’s a toss up between vaccinations and germ theory, and it depends on how you quantify their impact.
Vaccinations resulted in targeted disease prevention. Germ theory changed how we fight disease, how we understand disease (the idea that they are caused by microorganisms), and without germ theory antibiotics/vaccinations wouldn’t exist. Germ theory has also influenced public health measures and basically all of modern medicine.
I would say germ theory, personally.
Other people answered the more obvious answers already, but I’ll add antipsychotics. The invention of antipsychotics is what partially led to the downfall of mental asylums and allowed many people to live relatively normal lives