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For high blood pressure (hypertension), a new class of drug, called a vasopeptidase blocker (inhibitor), has been developed. It decreases blood pressure by simultaneously dilating the peripheral arteries and increasing the body's loss of salt.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.
Most childhood vaccines are 90–99% effective in preventing disease. Side effects are rarely serious.
In 1835 it was discovered that a disease of silkworms known as muscardine could be transferred from one silkworm to another, and was caused by a fungus.
Malaria was not eliminated in the United States until 1951. The term eliminated means that no new cases arise in a country for 3 years.