How many times might you have died (or lived a miserable life) if it weren't for the advent of antibiotics in the 50's and/or modern medicine?

Strep throat, which is so easily treated, can kill you if left untreated. For my own personal self, I’ll take the “miserable life” side. I was born with a congenital hip defect. The ball of my hip socket was badly under-formed. The doctor could turn my leg all the way around, like the exorcist. When it was discovered, at the age of 6 months (just as I was starting to pull myself up on furniture in an attempt to walk) I got slapped into a pillow splint for the next six months. That is, I had to wear these special baby shoes with a bar between the shoes so I couldn’t walk. Then I had to sit all day with my knees bent out to the side, and a pillow between my knees to immobilize the hip so the ball had a chance to grow.

When I was in 4th grade my eyes started going bad. I changed prescriptions every six months, until my Senior year in HS when I got contact lenses and the progressive astigmatism was halted. There was a good chance I could have gone blind in the end.

In Jr. High I got braces for my badly crooked teeth. In the end I wound up with a great smile.

To re-cap. Without modern medicine I would have been crippled, blind and all around ugly. I probably would have been treated as though I were retarded. But all the problems were corrected and that’s why you have ME!!! :)