Water Chlorination and 12 Other Lifesaving Innovations That Rarely Get Credit

Video: Family Health

In 1895, the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen produced the first picture using X-rays. The image, which clearly showed the skeletal outlines of his wife's fingers, as well as her wedding ring, electrified the public. The advance was the first of many imaging technologies—including MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasound—that allow doctors to peer inside patients without slicing them open. CT scans, for example, are now capable of producing exquisitely detailed 3-D images of the body, and functional MRIs can identify areas of the brain associated with certain activities, such as listening to music, a pastime that can be medicine for the mind.

Plastic

The stuff—troubling as it might be from an environmental perspective—makes our daily lives safer in a plethora of ways. Plastic containers, for example, protect our food from bacterial contamination; plastic bicycle helmets, our heads; plastic life jackets and air bags, our lives. Seat belts, for example, save some 11,000 people each year, according to the American Chemistry Council. Recent news about plastic, however, has been less than rosy. Some plastics contain certain chemicals, particularly phthalates and bisphenol A, that may pose a health risk, as U.S. News has reported.

Refrigerators

Before home refrigeration became common, Americans ate mainly bread and salted meat when produce wasn't in season. Now, thanks to refrigerators, which started to appear in many homes after 1911, we can eat a staggering—and much more nutritious—variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, milk, fish, and fresh meat. Research shows that improvements in nutrition due to refrigeration contributed to a 5 percent increase in the height of adults. Now we just need to steer ourselves toward healthful food choices, like the Mediterranean-style diet that emphasizes minimally processed foods, rather than gorging on products concocted by food scientists.