From Bloodletting to Evidence-Based Medicine Until around 1850, while doctors were sometimes able to help, many treatments – such as bloodletting, mercury-based remedies, and unsanitary surgical procedures – often did more harm than good. Surgical procedures were highly risky due to pain and infections. Before the introduction of modern techniques, severe infections led to death in a large proportion of patients who underwent surgery.
With the introduction of anesthesia in the 1840s, surgeries could be performed with greater precision. The decisive breakthrough, however, came with the germ theory, antisepsis, and later asepsis.
As a result, surgical mortality and complications dropped dramatically. Medicine as a whole likely crossed its “benefit-over-harm threshold” sometime between 1860 and 1900. For the general population, the benefits became even more evident in the 20th century: vaccinations, medications, safe obstetric care, modern surgery, preventive measures, and improved hygiene led to enormous declines in mortality.
