I would make the last two consequences of the microbe theory of infectious disease, which also led to sanitary water supplies and waste disposal. Why is the th

I would make the last two consequences of the microbe theory of infectious disease, which also led to sanitary water supplies and waste disposal. Why is the theory an accomplishment? Hooke's and van Leeuwenhoek's first observations of micro-organisms in water drops were treated as a meaningless curiosity for about 150 years, and essentially ignored. Finally it was realised that here was an alternative to prevailing ideas about infectious disease that had great explanatory power. The war of ideas lasted until the early twentieth century, when the last doctors clinging to the "miasma" theory and its ilk finally gave up. The theory made vaccines and antibiotics conceptually possible.