#and act very flippant about it same as bacterial infections

[thewitchoftheweed]

Saw a TikTok where someone asked Hank Green what people did for UTIs before antibiotics because “they couldn’t have just died.”

They did, in fact, just die. We are so used to antibiotics and medicine that we take them for granted. For most of human history, a cavity could easily take you out.

If you got a bacterial infection of any kind, you tried to keep your fever down and you prayed. Those were your options. Didn’t matter if it was a small cut or a sinus infection. You just had to hope your immune system had you covered.

I think this mindset is what contributes to anti-vax thinking, tbh. We’ve come so far and eliminated so many threats to our health that most people don’t consider them threats anymore. Most folks haven’t seen anyone die of tetanus or an abscessed tooth, so they don’t think it can happen.

It can. And if our antibiotics fail us? Back to square 1.