The improvement in hygiene was one of the greatest and most influential developments. This can be proved in the scientific discoveries, impact of the diseases, and the modern effects. To begin with, the discovery that germs caused diseases was one of the major breakthroughs in healthcare. Diseases back then has killed more lives than wars, executions, and other man-caused ways. With the continuous lack of hygiene, knowledge and practice, devastating diseases such as Cholera, Typhoid, and Typhus was some of the citizen’s worst nightmare. At first doctors thought it were the bad air, climate, and diet that caused all the illness. Hospitals were unsanitized and dirty, which often resulted in patients who went for treatments ending up getting …show more content…
Factories and workshops would dump their sewage in the streams and rivers, the same rivers and streams were used to supply the homes for cooking, washing and drinking. The same water system would now infect people as the filthy water is used. One of the major deadly diseases of the Industrial Revolution was Cholera. The disease had a several huge outbreak throughout Britain from 1831-1867. Cholera was not known as “King Cholera” for nothing, it was represented with a 50% death rate for those infected. Cholera was developed in water, therefore allowing it to spread around homes and towns with ease.. Poor workers who were infected could not have access to any medical treatments due to the lack of Political Rights and Economic influences. However, soon people such as Physicians and Social Critics began to stand for the improvement of poor working and living conditions, to reform public health for all. Later, the reformers also noted that the dangerous industrial products such as various manufactured goods also contained poisonous substances that led to serious health …show more content…
Despite all the negative events and the disruptive damage it has done, it is what led to all the research for vaccines and other healthcare and hygiene developments. In the past, Scientists assumed that germs had no harmful effects on people; which is also the reason why doctors did not realize the importance of washing hands and equipment before/after performing a surgery. There was the threat of infection, restricted amount of pain management, and doctors lacked of knowledge and experiment. In other words, surgery was the most feared medical practice. However, the number of innovations that came after changed this point of view. The new introduction to pain controls, hygienic instruments and other advancements, made surgery a far less fearful performance for all. For instance, a British surgeon – Joseph Lister, was first to use carbolic acid as a germ killer, his success resulted the idea to quickly develop into a hygiene breakthrough. Likewise, there was Ernst Bergmann – who was the first to stop germs from getting to the patient in the first place. This was done by aseptic surgery, which involved everything in the operation room to be thoroughly cleaned. The first public health improvement was established upon an idea that miasmas (bad smell) led to diseases. Of course this idea was not true, but