Not to mention that people used to routinely die from what we now consider minor infections.
Maternal mortality rates used to range from 10% to up to 50%, though admittedly the high end was due to late pre-modern hospital procedures.
Yeah. I would add that my maternal ancestors who had their babies at home with midwives had much much lower mortality than those who had their babies in hospitals prior to the advent of antibiotics. I only counted one ‘country mom’ who lost her life in childbearing in the 150 years prior to 2000. And that was her first. The first baby was the litmus test apparently.
Both my parents were born at home. I asked my grandmother once why she had my mom at home, in 1941, when there was a hospital literally 2 blocks away. She got a horrified look on her face and said hospitals were death traps prior to antibiotics and nobody went there unless they were near to dying. My great aunt was a RN and was the assist at my grandmothers births prior to the doc getting there.
Antibiotics are great things. Proper sanitation ensures they’re not unnecessarily overused and invalidated via resistance mechanisms.