Public health at the turn of the 20th century, Europe coming of age

Abstract

The twentieth century is often denoted as the era in which health care became effective. Both preventive programmes such as vaccination and curative interventions such as antibiotic treatment, surgical interventions and drugs vastly changed the population’s health landscape in both developed and developing countries. Especially after the second world war, in the second half of that century, with social health insurance achieving universal access to health services in most European countries and health research generating ever more clinically relevant results, the sense of a new era full of promise was pervasive.