LATEST NEWS 
January 24, 2007
Infrastructure
Water systems great medical milestone
A British poll’s rating of water and wastewater treatment as the greatest medical milestone since 1840 is music to the ears of Consulting Engineers of Ontario.
“It is gratifying to see the role of sanitation acknowledged and the contribution of the design and construction community recognized,” said president John Gamble. “Our accomplishments are often unheralded.”
Sanitation beat 15 other medical advances, including the discovery of antibiotics, the creation of the Pill, and the development of vaccine in the poll, conducted by the British Medical Journal.
More than 11,000 people from around the world voted in the poll to find the greatest medical breakthrough since the journal began. Some 604 Canadians participated.
Despite the strong field, sanitation was the undisputed winner with 1,795 votes.
Antibiotics was a close second with 1,642 votes and anaesthesia took third place.
The original champions of the sanitary revolution were John Snow, who showed that cholera was spread by water, and Edwin Chadwick, who came up with the idea of sewage disposal and piping water into homes.
The journal said inadequate sanitation is still a major problem in the developing world.
In 2001, unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene accounted for more than 1.5 million deaths from diarrheal disease in low and middle-income countries.
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