Lifesavers

The things that saved the most lives

One page per invention or discovery that pushed death back at a scale that is hard to picture. Every number here is quoted from the source that measured it, linked underneath.

01 Vaccines Vaccination is the single biggest lifesaver in the history of medicine, credited with about 154 million lives in 50 years, most of them infants. Edward Jenner proved the principle in 1796 · 1796, then scaled from 1974 154 million saved
02 Smallpox eradication Smallpox killed about 300 million people in the 20th century alone, and in 1980 became the first human disease ever deliberately wiped from the Earth. Edward Jenner (1796 vaccine) · eradicated 1980 300 million saved
03 Clean water Filtering and chlorinating city water was responsible for about 43 percent of the fall in urban death rates in early 20th-century America, and three-quarters of the drop in infant deaths. Municipal sand filtration and chlorination, adopted across US and European cities in the early 1900s. · 1900s ≈43% saved
04 Synthetic fertilizer Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, pulled from thin air by the Haber-Bosch process, now feeds roughly half of everyone alive. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed the process to make ammonia (1909 to 1913). · 1909 ≈half the world saved
05 Oral rehydration therapy A mixture of water, salt and sugar that costs pennies has saved more than 70 million children from dying of dehydration. Developed in the 1960s and proven in the field in South Asia · 1960s to 1970s 70 million saved
06 The measles vaccine The measles vaccine averted nearly 59 million deaths in a single generation, more than any other vaccine in that span. John Enders and Thomas Peebles isolated the measles virus and developed the first vaccine, licensed in 1963. · 1963 59 million saved
07 Insecticide-treated bed nets A treated mesh net over a bed turned out to be the single biggest reason malaria retreated across Africa, behind most of an estimated 663 million cases averted. Bed nets are ancient · 1980s onward 68% of 663 million cases saved
08 The polio vaccine The polio vaccine has cut cases of the paralysing virus by more than 99% since 1988, and more than 20 million people can walk today who would otherwise have been paralysed. Jonas Salk developed the first (injected) vaccine in 1955 · 1955 20 million saved
09 Insulin Before 1922 a child diagnosed with type 1 diabetes had months to live; the discovery of insulin turned an automatic death sentence into a manageable condition. Frederick Banting and Charles Best, with James Collip and J.J.R. Macleod, at the University of Toronto. · 1921 to 1922 beyond counting
10 Penicillin and antibiotics A mould spotted on a messy lab plate in 1928 became penicillin, the first antibiotic, and turned infections that routinely killed into problems a pill could solve. Alexander Fleming observed the effect in 1928 · 1928 beyond counting

Figures are quoted from the source that measured them, linked on each page. Where no honest number exists, the entry says so rather than invent one.

Progress like this happens every day.