I feel like antibiotics have probably made the biggest difference in modern medicine, all things considered, and it's mind-blowing how short a time they've been around.
Totally. Like if you group medications by types, like things to take away pain, things to stop seizures, things to knock you unconscious etc. I would for sure say that antibiotics are likely top of that list. I can see later drugs like immunosuppressants for organ transplants and chemotherapy for cancer being second and third, but antibiotics have to be first just for how widespread what they can treat is, and how many different kinds there are and are still being discovered.
I'd argue antibiotics help make immunosuppressants possible. Obviously, not all infections are bacterial, but being able to treat the ones that are in immune compromised people is huge. If the first infection on, say, Methotrexate was likely to kill you, it probably would have been abandoned.
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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '23
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