In 2007 The BMJ asked readers to nominate the most important medical milestones since the forerunner of The BMJ was first published in 1840. A panel of editors whittled 70 suggestions down to 15 and then asked readers to vote. This was the shortlist:
- The discovery of antibiotics
- Imaging
- Tissue culture
- Anaesthesia
- Chlorpromazine
- Sanitation
- Germ theory
- Evidence based medicine
- Vaccines
- Contraceptive pill
- Computer technology
- Oral rehydration therapy
- Monoclonal antibody technology
- Discovery of smoking risks
- Discovery of the structure of DNA
Editor in chief Fiona Godlee unveiled the shortlist in January 2007. Jeffrey Koplan, vice president for academic health affairs at Woodruff Health Sciences Center in Atlanta, Georgia, compared The BMJ's list with one he initiated for the US Centers for Disease Control. Freelance medical journalist Geoff Watts offered a more critical view, arguing that it played to the "major breakthrough" view of science. Let's pension off this clichéd old soldier of a term, he concluded. So which milestone won? More than 11 300 readers voted for the introduction of clean water and sewage disposal—“the sanitary revolution”— as the most important medical milestone since 1840. The winner was announced at a ceremony chaired by Jon Snow, the broadcaster and presenter of Channel 4 News.
See also:
- BMJ readers choose the “sanitary revolution” as greatest medical advance since 1840
- Milestones that showed the way to modern medicine
- Sanitation 'best medical advance'