When we think of the good ol’ days, lets also remember they also included smallpox, polio, yellow fever, typhoid, rubella, rabies, hib, tetanus, mumps, hepatitis A/B, varicella, tuberculosis, malaria, syphilis, anemia from hookworm, and a high instance of dental caries.

Prior to 1795, it was a given that half of all sailors on a voyage during the Age of Sail would die of scurvy. With international trade and industrialized agriculture, famine has moved out of living memory of the people in most economically developed countries.

And as these problems move out of living memory, we forget what life was like before they were solved. Iodine in salt is just one example among many.