Free Republic

Sanitation was voted the most important medical milestone in the past century and a half on Thursday in a poll conducted by a leading medical journal. Improved sewage disposal and clean water supply systems, which have reduced diseases such as cholera, was the overwhelming favorite of 11,341 people worldwide who voted in the survey conducted by the British Medical Journal. It surpassed antibiotics, the discovery of DNA, and anesthesia, which were among the top five milestones in the poll. Participants were asked what they thought was the biggest medical advance since the journal was established in 1840. "I'm delighted that...