Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: The Importance of Origins

"We had accepted some half truths and had stopped searching for the whole truths. The principal half truths were that medical research had stamped out the great killers of the past – tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, puerperal sepsis, etc. The data on deaths from tuberculosis show that the mortality rate from this disease has been declining steadily since the middle of the 19th century and was not altered measurably by the discovery of the tubercle bacillus, the advent of the tuberculin test, the appearance of BCG vaccination, the widespread use of mass screening, the intensive anti-tuberculosis campaigns, or the discovery of streptomycin. Similar trends in mortality have been reported with respect to diphtheria, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, pertussis, measles, and many others." Edward Harold Kass