With Anton Van Leeuwenhoek inventing the microscope, Edward Jenner pioneering vaccines, and Louis Pasteur discovering germs (Rhodes, 2014), it was obvious that science was beginning to advance in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today’s “common knowledge” was just being discovered during that time period. People were curious how things worked and how to improve the lives of others. Even though it took a while for a theory to be accepted in the scientific community, little was known about science or microbiology. It was believed that illnesses were caused by outside influences like bad air or divine punishment (Disease Warriors, 2006), when in actuality the rise of contagious diseases and infections were caused by many people crowded into a small area with little to no sanitation (Rhodes, 2014). Today, with the knowledge that was discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries and other technologies we are allowed to expand our knowledge even further. When Edward Jenner discovered the first vaccine, he did not know if using the puss from cowpox would even work as a vaccine, but he tested his theory on a healthy boy (Disease Warriors, 2006). In today’s society, testing like that would not be allowed to happen to any human, especially a child.
Scientists today have developed more vaccines, cures and antibiotics because of the beginning research done by those in the 18th and 19th centuries. Antibiotics are used to cure many different types of illness, but they are too strong and can kill off the good microbes with prolong use (Eisen, 2012). The microbe community was not known to be a good thing for the human body, but as more research is completed, it is seems that it could be viewed as another organ, another critical part of being healthy (Eisen, 2012). It is theorized that the destruction of the good microbes can cause a change in the metabolic rate or the start of an