--- title: Light, machines and medicine: how the last 250 years changed a normal day — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Light, machines and medicine: how the last 250 years changed a normal day», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Toby's friend says Fleming found penicillin and saved everybody in like a day. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Light, machines and medicine: how the… # Light, machines and medicine: how the last 250 years changed a normal day Lesson 65 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/0/) — Toby's friend says Fleming found penicillin and saved everybody in like a day. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/1/) — Abby tells her gran it is «delulu», short for deluded, to say the washing machine changed more lives than the internet. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/2/) — One claim is a myth, the other is a real debate. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/3/) — What really happened: Fleming noticed in 1928 that a mould killed germs, but it took Florey, Chain and many others until the 1940s to turn it into a medicine. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/4/) — And some economists really do argue that home machines like washers freed more time than the internet, while others disagree. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/5/) — Picture a power cut: candles, a cold fridge, no TV. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/6/) — Around 1800 that was every evening. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/8/) — The biggest change is the saddest to remember: around 1800 about four in ten children died before age five, and today about four in a hundred do. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/9/) — Clean water, vaccines, better food and medicine made that difference. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/10/) — Every change had people behind it and new problems after it. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/11/) — Workers campaigned for weekends, doctors who said «wash your hands» were laughed at first, and plastic, once a wonder, now litters beaches. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/12/) — Electric light bulbs became practical around 1880; in 1930 only about one US farm in ten had electricity, and about 700 million people still live without it today. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/13/) — Washing clothes by hand once took a whole day each week, mostly for women; whether home machines changed life more than the internet is a real debate. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/14/) — Electric fridges became common in American homes by about 1950 and in many other countries later; before, people shopped often and kept food cool in cellars or with ice. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/15/) — In 1796 Edward Jenner used cowpox to protect people from smallpox; earlier, people in China, India, Africa and the Ottoman Empire used a riskier method, and an enslaved African man, Onesimus, told Boston doctors about it in 1721. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/16/) — Smallpox was wiped out worldwide in 1980. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/17/) — In 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis showed handwashing saved mothers' lives but was mocked; in the 1860s to 1880s Pasteur and Koch proved that germs cause disease. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/18/) — Fleming noticed in 1928 that mould killed bacteria; Florey, Chain and others turned penicillin into a medicine in the 1940s; antibiotics do not work against viruses like colds. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/19/) — Until 1846, when ether was shown working in Boston, most surgery was done on patients who were awake. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/20/) — Around 1800 about 4 in 10 children died before age five; today about 4 in 100 do. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/21/) — Karl Benz built a motor car in 1886, the Wright brothers flew in 1903, and 66 years later people walked on the Moon. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/22/) — Bell patented the telephone in 1876, though others such as Antonio Meucci worked on similar ideas and credit is argued; radio spread in the 1920s and TV from the 1950s. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/23/) — Early factory workers often worked 12 hours or more, six days a week; workers campaigned, and the 8-hour day and two-day weekend spread in the early 1900s. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/65-light-machines-and-medicine-how-the-last-250-years-changed-a-normal-day/24/) — Plastics spread from the 1950s; they are cheap, light and clean, but plastic waste now fills oceans and beaches. - ← previous: [Learning through the ages: schools, universities, libraries and science](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/64-learning-through-the-ages-schools-universities-libraries-and-science/) - next →: [From band to nation: families, tribes, kingdoms, empires and countries](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/66-from-band-to-nation-families-tribes-kingdoms-empires-and-countries/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)