What long-held belief that takes its name from the Greek for 'pollution' purported that deadly diseases like cholera and plague were caused by a noxious form of 'bad air'?
Germ theory of disease was the predominant theory of disease transmission before the germ theory took hold towards the end of the 19th century, and it is no longer accepted as a scientific theory of disease. It held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia infection, or the Black Death were caused by a "miasma" (μίασμα, Ancient Greek: "pollution"), a noxious form of "bad air" emanating from rotting organic matter. Miasma was considered to be a poisonous vapor or mist filled with particles from decomposed matter (miasmata) that was identifiable by its foul smell. The theory posited that diseases were the product of environmental factors
Air pollution joint study by the World Bank and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. These productivity losses are caused by deaths due to diseases caused by air pollution. One out of ten deaths in 2013 was caused by diseases associated with air pollution and the problem is getting worse. The problem is even more acute in the developing world. "Children under age 5 in lower-income countries are more than 60 times as likely to die from exposure to air pollution as children in high-income countries." The report states that additional economic losses caused by