Various diseases thrive in this environment, the most drastic of which is called trachoma.

By the late 1930s, a number of ophthalmologists reported success in treating trachoma with sulfonamide antibiotics.

Trachoma is an infection of the eye due to dirt getting into your eye. Multiple infections of trachoma can leave you permanently blind.

Instead of finding out what we thought was the case that blindness was caused mostly by glaucoma and trachoma we were astounded to find out that blindness was caused instead by cataract.

In 1948, Vincent Tabone (who was later to become the President of Malta) was entrusted with the supervision of a campaign in Malta to treat trachoma using sulfonamide tablets and drops.

The disease leaves eight million people permanently blind each and every year. The shocking part about it is that to avoid being infected with trachoma, all you have to do is wash your face no medicine, no pills, no injections.