Few people realize the incredible effect antibiotics have had on medicine. I was surprised to read that prior to 1910, over 90% of deaths were caused by infectious disease.
Today it is just the opposite, only 10% and that is due to antibiotics.
I always thought Sir Alexander Fleming should have been named the man of the century.
If you ever get a chance, read what you can on the issue of washing hands in early modern medicine. It is amazing what an impact that simple thing had on mortality rates.
These advances will grind to a halt once we get socialized medicine in America. America is the last bastion of experiment and development of drugs. What European companies still do research only do it because of the American market. The research is extremely expensive and the patents received and the monopoly prices that derive from those patents while they are in force are what pays for the research for the new drugs and for the ones that failed. We complain about the high cost of new drugs in America but the alternative is no new drugs. When the government is the payer for medicine then there can be no more drug research or new machines because the government has to weigh medical expenses against Defense and Welfare and bureaucrats’ salaries.An individual’s health is his priority and he will pay what he must to maintain it. The government has to decide who is worthy to get healthcare and does not have that individual’s priority at all.