I think that, as with a lot of diseases, people just don’t realise how damaging they were before modern vaccines and treatments. You only have to look at old photographs of smallpox to be absolutely horrified, but we just don’t see that now. It’s been eradicated but who understands that? same with rubella and scarlet fever. Same with measles.
I have heard so, so many people say “oh I had measles as a child and got over it what’s the big deal?“. Well, I had it as a child, too, quite badly and I also got over it. But, at the time, I’m almost certain that we had no idea of the long-term damaging effects that the disease could have. Also, it’s very, very unpleasant for babies, who catch it and for many children. Unfortunately, people generalise from the particular and if they didn’t have it too badly then they just assumed that that’s it, and there’s no more to be said.
It was the same with German measles. People would self righteously send their children to school to pass it on. Completely oblivious to the fact that a teacher might be pregnant or someone’s mother might be pregnant or that the child might sit on a bus with someone who was pregnant. All that could have devastating consequences.
Same with TB. Absolutely no understanding of the complete wreckage of lives that this disease caused. I was very disappointed that in the remake of All Creatures Great and Small, Siegfried Garnon’s first wife was said to have had cancer, when the reality is that she died of TB. It would be much better if people had understood what really happened.
Again, with diseases such as rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis. Nobody now realises that only a few decades ago people used to die of these diseases. The photographs that you have in textbooks show what is now the exception, but 50 years ago these contorted limbs were the reality for many, many people.
The human race will bring its destruction on itself.