Power of ideas

For nearly a decade I produced a public radio program called Social Thought.  Social Thought is about how institutions are built around ideas, concepts and metaphors.

It recently crossed my mind that there is an example of one particular simple and clear idea that radically changed the world in ways we have never conceived.

The idea is germ theory.  There is no clear point of origin of germ theory it is so simple it can not be ascribed to anyone at any one point. 

However germ theory could only become popular after the development and widespread use of the microscope and the Enlightenment value of experimentation.  The idea that invisible organisms were responsible for many illnesses slowly gained currency in educated circles before the middle of the 1800s.  From that point on scientists and medical practitioners increasingly found evidence to support germ theory.

The first point where I can find a drop in infant mortality is in the suburbs of Boston in the late 1840s.  It was clearly due to improved sanitation.  The overall death rate proceeded to drop rapidly as nearby towns improved their sanitation. 

The spread of these two linked conditions, improved sanitation and increased survival rates expanded until it covered the planet. (1850: 1.2 billion, today:6.8 billion)

The consequence of improved sanitation was the decline of infant mortality, the decline in death from child birth and the decline in all other forms of early death.  All of which combined to dramatically increase global population.  A simple idea, that was an accurate description of the world around us, created a population explosion, that is over now.

Germ theory create global population explosion.