Sanitation wins greatest medical milestone poll
Sanitation has been voted the greatest medical milestone since 1840 in a poll of more than 11,000 people carried out by the British Medical Journal. The introduction of clean water and improved sewage disposal received the most votes, followed by antibiotics, anaesthesia, vaccines and the discovery of the structure of DNA. 'I'm delighted that sanitation is recognised by so many people as such an important milestone,' said Professor Johan Mackenbach of Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, who championed the sanitation choice. 'The general lesson which still holds is that passive protection against health hazards is often the best way to improve population health,' he added. 'Clearly, sanitation still plays a vital role in improving public health now and in the future,' he said. The importance of sanitation was originally established by Dr John Snow and Edwin Chadwick in the 19th century. Dr Snow explained in 1854 that the lethal cholera was spread by water, and Edwin Chadwick came up with the idea of sewage disposal and piping water into homes in the 1840s. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) had asked people to vote for the most important breakthrough of the last two centuries after leading scientists picked 15 medical advances for a shortlist. The complete shortlist included anaesthesia, antibiotics, chlorpromazine to treat mental illness, computers, DNA structure, evidence-based medicine, germ theory, imaging, immunology, oral rehydration therapy, the contraceptive pill, the risks of smoking, sanitation, tissue culture and vaccines.
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