Descriptions of malaria symptoms date back to Chinese medical texts from 2700 BC. Sir Ronald Ross won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for identifying mosquitoes as the primary carriers of the disease – this was key in knowing how to stop the disease spreading. Nowadays, using mosquito nets is still the most effective way to prevent malaria.

And few of these were filled to capacity when the ship went down. American inventor, Maria Beasley, patented her design for the lifeboat in 1884. While many died in the tragedy, 700 people were brought to safety thanks to their invention and many more could have been saved if enough lifeboats had been installed.

Since industrialisation, cities have always faced problems with pollution: we may have removed the problem with coal burning but diesel cars and release of gases like NO2 now have a huge negative impact on our health. The invention of electric cars is a step in the right direction but the problem still hasn’t been solved. This is an area for potential inventions to save lives – can you think of a new way to stop our cities getting polluted? (Source)

In 1796, English doctor Edward Jenner saw that milkmaids who previously had cowpox didn’t suffer smallpox-like symptoms when exposed to the virus. Infection with the curable cowpox virus stopped them from getting sick from the similar smallpox! This was the birth of the vaccine. On average, 3 out of 10 people used to die from smallpox and its eradication was the first and, so far, only disease to be fully eradicated by vaccination. 

85% of cigarette smoke is invisible. Second-hand smoking can cause cancer and is particularly bad for children – it can lead to other diseases like asthma, bacterial meningitis, respiratory infections and cot death. Realising the health risks of passive smoking has led to the smoking ban in England which is already improving health of non-smokers, and the recent ban on smoking in cars with passengers under the age of 18 will protect children from toxic chemicals that come from cigarettes.

While it may not be glamorous, for this we have to thank Victorian engineer, Joseph Bazalgette – he built London’s first sewers in 1859. The introduction of sanitation systems like this stopped people getting sick from diseases carried in our cities’ rivers.

In 1940, British codebreaker Alan Turing built a machine called Victory at Bletchley Park to decode the messages. By 1943, Turing’s machines were decoding 84,000 messages a month – that’s two messages every minute. This intelligence gained by the British army helped them to end the war faster, saving millions of lives.

Kevlar was invented by American chemist, Stephanie Louise Kwolek in 1965. Renowned for its heat resistance and strength, Kevlar is used in everything from life-saving protective armour and clothing to construction projects, shoes and musical instruments!

It took around 2 million units to treat a single patient. In 1928, British scientist Alexander Fleming saw a penicilium mould on a bacterial plate that killed the bacteria around it. Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain worked to up-scale production so that, by the end of World War II, 85% of penicillin produced went to treat many thousands of soldiers on the front line. Antibiotics now save millions of lives from infection every year. 

Before milk was routinely pasteurised, thousands of people would die every year from tuberculosis bacteria that would grow in bottles of milk transported from the country into cities. Milk we drink nowadays is heated to kill bacteria (pasteurised, after the inventor Louis Pasteur) so it’s safe to drink after transit.