Great book on the history of pre-antibiotic medicine is "Devils, Drugs and Doctors" by Howard Haggard, available online here: http://www.unz.org/Pub/HaggardHowa

Great book on the history of pre-antibiotic medicine is "Devils, Drugs and Doctors" by Howard Haggard, available online here: http://www.unz.org/Pub/HaggardHoward-1929 http://www.unz.org/Pub/HaggardHoward-1929 As I recall, you could boil down medical progress up to the publication date as "discovery of germs" as in "washing hands," "cleaning things," "vaccination," "isolate people with plague from the well" and "don't drink water you pooped in" -and the discovery of anesthesia, which made complex surgery possible. I'd say antibiotics is the main further improvement.