With historical childhood mortality rates, they started coming down before modern vaccination or antibiotics were invented. In the USA and UK, the great majori

With historical childhood mortality rates, they started coming down before modern vaccination or antibiotics were invented. In the USA and UK, the great majority of the advance was actually made from about 1900 - 1930. Here in a wealthy part of Canada, to lose a child in infancy was already a relatively rare tragedy when my grandmother was born. Here's maternal and infant mortality rates for the UK 1900 - 1980 [1]. And estimates for the USA [2]. From about 25% in the late 19th century to about 5% in 1940. There are many reasons, but germ theory, and modern understanding of nutrition, probably accounts for much, maybe most of it. I would probably poison myself in the kitchen every time I cooked, if I wasn't working with germ theory implicitly baked into my entire mental framework. And of course having the technology (clean tap water, refrigeration, airtight seals, heat on demand) to apply it efficiently. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Infant-and-maternal-mortality-in-England-and-Wales-1900-1980-Based-in-part-upon-49_fig4_226933583 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Infant-and-maternal-mort... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/US-infant-mortality-rates-1840-to-2000-reproduced-with-permission-35_fig1_327781399 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/US-infant-mortality-rate...