The practices of public sanitation and personal hygiene have dramatically reduced the incidence of certain infectious diseases. The control of many infectious illnesses has occurred as societies themselves have become more advanced. Many of the protections are now in place such as vaccination, water and sewage treatment, and safe food-handling and distribution practices have vastly improved our ability to control infectious disease outbreaks

Joshua Lederberg (1925-2008), Nobel Prize Laureate from USA, provided this slide for the first version of the golden lecture in 2003. For full version of Dr. Lederberg’s lecture, please visit  http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec6991/index.htm