Medicine: BMJ readers think Sanitation, and not ECMO, is the greatest medical milestone since 1840

The headline is of course a joke only embittered Michiganders will get. Forgive me that.

Of course the Brits would think that. The dirty mongrels kept drinking shitty water and getting cholera in 1854. Most of them still have the runs, even though John Snow figured out it was all the water company's fault.

I.e., John Stossel can suck John Snow's waterpump. There's some corporate malfeasance exposure for you.

And that's why there are no dentists in Britain, because you can't sit in a dentist chair while you have the runs. The dentists took the snakes with them too, explaining that whole St Patrick thing, or whatever.

Improved sewage disposal and clean water supply systems, which have reduced diseases such as cholera, was the overwhelming favorite of 11,341 people worldwide who voted in the survey conducted by the British Medical Journal.

It surpassed antibiotics, the discovery of DNA, and anesthesia, which were among the top five milestones in the poll. Participants were asked what they thought was the biggest medical advance since the journal was established in 1840.

"I'm delighted that sanitation is recognized by so many people as such an important milestone," said Professor Johan Mackenbach, of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam who championed the sanitation choice.

My vote for nerd of the year: Johan Mackenbach. It's one thing to be right that having your shit leave your house in a timely fashion is pretty important for health. It's another thing to be THAT excited about shit leaving your house in a timely fashion.

For your daily "I need to learn something nerdy about medicine" dose, read about John Snow, Papa of Epidemiology. UCLA is similarly WAY TOO EXCITED about John Snow.