No, it was improvement in hygiene and sanitation. It was an achievement born of common sense and deduction. War, on the other hand, contributes mightily to a reduction of the human lifespan. Modern warfare is born of science.
And where do you think the knowledge of hygiene and sanitation came from? *SCIENCE*. It was the scientific method that enabled people like Dr. John Snow to identify where the cholera cases in London's 1854 outbreak were happening. From that, he identified the Broad Street pump, which pumped in water directly from the Thames River for human consumption. This pump accessed the downstream Thames River, after the cesspits and other sources of human waste had flown into it.
That's right - people dumped buckets of human waste into cesspits - holes dug in the ground. Often right next to drinking water sources.
It was Snow's discovery that led to the development of London's sewer system, which enabled the foul cesspits to be outlawed.
And famed nurse Florence Nightingale believed until her death in 1910 that communicable illness was caused by "bad air", not by bacterial contamination. She did not understand the germ theory of infection (yep, *just* a "theory") but YOU should.
There was no such "common knowledge" that people just developed *organically* through "common sense and deduction". Unless you're attempting to separate "deduction" from the scientific method that is its source. People all around Dr. John Snow believed that epidemic illness was punishment from God (hence the calls both in Britain and in the US for "national days of prayer, fasting, and humiliation" as a remedy) or the result of bad smells, evil spells, bad luck, demons, The Devil, and the Evil Eye.
And pandemics like the Black Death, like the cholera pandemics of the 1800s-early 1900s, and the others have taken more lives than modern warfare has. Not to downplay the heinousness of the modern war machine, but it serves no one to come off as irrational and hysterical.
Other examples are mercury poisoning in Japan. It was the mother's who discovered the source, not the scientists, It was the veterans who discovered the cause of their illness (agent orange), not the scientists.
Who created Chernobyl and Fukushima, scientists or peasants?
And where do you think the knowledge of hygiene and sanitation came from? *SCIENCE*. It was the scientific method that enabled people like Dr. John Snow to identify where the cholera cases in London's 1854 outbreak were happening. From that, he identified the Broad Street pump, which pumped in water directly from the Thames River for human consumption. This pump accessed the downstream Thames River, after the cesspits and other sources of human waste had flown into it.
ReplyDeleteThat's right - people dumped buckets of human waste into cesspits - holes dug in the ground. Often right next to drinking water sources.
It was Snow's discovery that led to the development of London's sewer system, which enabled the foul cesspits to be outlawed.
And famed nurse Florence Nightingale believed until her death in 1910 that communicable illness was caused by "bad air", not by bacterial contamination. She did not understand the germ theory of infection (yep, *just* a "theory") but YOU should.
There was no such "common knowledge" that people just developed *organically* through "common sense and deduction". Unless you're attempting to separate "deduction" from the scientific method that is its source. People all around Dr. John Snow believed that epidemic illness was punishment from God (hence the calls both in Britain and in the US for "national days of prayer, fasting, and humiliation" as a remedy) or the result of bad smells, evil spells, bad luck, demons, The Devil, and the Evil Eye.
And pandemics like the Black Death, like the cholera pandemics of the 1800s-early 1900s, and the others have taken more lives than modern warfare has. Not to downplay the heinousness of the modern war machine, but it serves no one to come off as irrational and hysterical.
History of Sanitation and Hygiene:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/a-history-of-medicine/history-hygiene-timeline/
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/a-history-of-medicine/history-hygiene-timeline/
Other examples are mercury poisoning in Japan. It was the mother's who discovered the source, not the scientists, It was the veterans who discovered the cause of their illness (agent orange), not the scientists.
Who created Chernobyl and Fukushima, scientists or peasants?