Down w/ the Sickness - Adam

As you know last Wednesday I went to an Urgent Care Center for pink eye because I was told that a prescription is the only way to get rid of the thing using antibiotics.
I'm also fighting some nasty athlete's foot right now which also will only go away if treated with some sort of ointment.
Both of these scenarios got me thinking. What did people do back in the day before antibiotics?
I'm assuming people just HAD pink eye for the rest of their lives.
If pink eye is as contagious as everyone would have you and I believe then wouldn't it make sense that everyone back in the eye had incurable pink eye?
The same goes with athlete's foot. I'm told its contagious, if this is true then everyone back in the day would be walking around gooping out of their eyes and feet until they die...
I don't think that this was the case though, this begs the question what did they do bout it?
hmmm