Chronography of Medicine and Health

Page last modified 29 May 2023

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See separate page for Covid-19 data

Smoking � see Morals and Fashion

For advances in cloning, see Science and Technology.

See also Biology, For �oldest mother� see Biology

Bovine Spingiform Encelopathy and CJD� see Farming

For Hospitals see Medical-Hospitals

Dentistry, see Appendix 1

Heart and Blood Circulation, see Appendix 2

Kidneys and bladder, see Appendix 2a

Liver � see Appendix 2b

Reproduction, STDs and Childbirth � see Appendix 3

Thalidomide � see Appendix 3a

AIDS, see Appendix

Cancer, see Appendix

Cholera, see Appendix

Diabetes and Insulin, see Appendix

Ebola,

Influenza and other respiratory inc. Covid-19, see Appendix

Malaria, see Appendix

Measles, see appendix

Mental illness, see Appendix

Polio, see Appendix

Smallpox, see Appendix

Syphilis, see Appendix

Tuberculosis, see Appendix

National Health Service (UK), see Appendix a

Anaesthetics, see Appendix c

Famous medical people

2 February 2016, The World Health Organisation declared Zika to be a global emergency, on a par with Ebola, as Brazil mobilised 220,000 troops to fight the disease, spraying against mosquitoes and checking for stagnant water where the mosquito might breed. However the Rio carnival went ahead and Brazil said it would not cancel the Olympics. Cases of microcephaly, which first appeared in Polynesia in 2014, rose in Brazil to 3,700 since October 2015, compared with fewer than 200 in 2014. An estimated 1.5 million Brazilians now carry the Zika virus, which usually causes very little illness in adults, so they may be unaware of any risk to their unborn baby.

27 January 2016 , Concerns grew about the Zika virus, which if contracted by pregnant women could cause the baby to have microcephalus. The virus is spread by mosquitoes and may affect all the Americas except Canada and Chile, also much of Africa and southern Asia.

12 December 2005, Scientists announced they had created mice with small amounts of human brain cells, to study neurological disorders.

30 November 2005, Surgeons in France carried out the first human face transplant.

14 July 2005, Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the palliative care movement, died (born 22 June 1918)

31 March 2005, In the US, irreversibly brain-damaged patient Terri Schiavo died after her feeding tube was removed on 19 March 2005. The dispute between her parents and her husband on whether to do this became a national Right-to-Die debate.

19 February 2003, James Hardy, surgeon, died.

25 October 2000. Britain�s oldest man, Bill Lee, died. He attributed his longevity to a dram of whisky every night, and died peacefully in his sleep aged 108. He was born on 13 January 1892 in Stoke on Trent. He was shot in the arm and blinded in one eye whilst serving as a sapper in France during World War One, and was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour by the French Government for his services in war. Afterwards, Mr Lee returned home to manage a Milletts store in Hanley, Stoke, until he retired at the age of 72. He spent is later years in a residential home. He left a brother and sister, four grandchildren, ten great grandchildren, and two great-great grandsons. He was recognised as Britain�s oldest man by the Guinness Book of Records in August 2000.

26 June 2000. British and American scientists announced they had succeeded in decoding the 3 billion pairs of human DNA.

13 August 1998, UK authorities warned of a rat invasion, saying there were 750,000 rat-infested homes in Britain.

2 July 1997. The British Medical Association announced that drugs derived from cannabis were to be made legally available for cancer patients and others suffering from debilitating diseases.

24 March 1997, The Australian Federal Government overturned the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, allowing voluntary euthanasia, which had been passed by the Northern Territory in 1996.

1 July 1996, The Northern Territory in Australia legalised voluntary euthanasia.

23 June 1995, Jonas Salk, medical researcher, died.

1993, US medical costs (public and private combined) amounted to 13.0% of national income. This compared to 9.1% in 1980 and 7.3$ in 1970.

26 May 1993, US First :Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made a speech denouncing price gougers and profiteering in medicine.

8 May 1991. UK scientists discovered the gene that determines sex.

22 March 1988, In Australia, doctors turned off the life support system of a terminally ill female patient for the first time.

30 September 1987, At the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, Susan Lazarchick had the first successful transplant of the body�s most complex joint, the knee.

7 September 1987, The world�s first conference on artificial life began, at Los Alamos National Laboratories, USA.

17 December 1986, Mrs Davina Thompson made medical history at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK, when she was given a new heart, lungs, and liver.

22 September 1986, At Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, a 2 � month old baby became the youngest heart and lung transplant patient.

21 February 1986, Shigechiyo Izumi, the world�s oldest man, died in Japan aged 120.

11 July 1985, Dr H Harlan Stone announced he had devised a self-adhesive zipper to be used instead of stitches where patients need to be re-operated on.

7 March 1985, Dr Alec Jeffreys, at Leicester University, discovered a method of creating �genetic fingerprints� from DNA in blood, semen or saliva.

25 October 1984. The hepatitis virus was identified.

31 March 1978, Charles Herbert Best, Canadian-US physiologist, died in Toronto, Ontario.

3 July 1977, The first prototype Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan on a human was performed. The machine was built by Raymond Damadian. See also Atomic Power and Electricity.

1976, Endorphins first discovered.

4 August 1976, First recorded cases of Legionnaires Disease, at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, killed 29 people. Scientists isolated the previously unknown bacteria that caused this disease on 18 January 1977.

25 January 1972, In London, the National Organ Matching And Distribution Service (NOMDS) was established.

1971, The diamond-bladed scalpel was invented by the Microsurgical Instrumentation Research Association. It greatly improved eye surgery.

1 October 1971, The first CT scan was performed, on a patient�s brain, at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London,

25 July 1971. The first heart and lung transplant was performed.

22 April 1971, The MMR vaccine (combined mumps, measles, rubella) was licensed in the USA.

1970, In Germany, the first successful nerve transplant took place.

June 1967, Gustave NJ Nossal proposed that antibodies work by recognising the size and shape of the antigen.

25 July 1963, Ugo Cerletti, neurologist, died.

26 March 1963, Connie Culp, US crime victim who, in 2008, became the first US recipient of a face transplant, was born (died 2020)

18 April 1963, The first human nerve transplant was carried out by Dr James Campbell at New York University Medical Centre.

1962, English orthopaedic surgeon John Charnley discovered a low-friction high-density polythene suitable for artificial joints,

1962, Lasers were used in eye surgery for the first time.

7 June 1958, British physician Ian Donald published a paper on the first use of ultrasound for diagnosis.

1957, Interferon was discovered by Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindemann.

11 March 1957, The World Health Information published the first indications that radiation may have genetic effects.

29 December 1952, The miniature hearing aid was invented by Sonotone Corporation.

17 Decmeber 1952, Surgeons in Chicago carried out the first operation to successfully separate conjoined twins.

1 December 1952, George Jorgensen Jr of the USA became the first person to have gender reassignment surgery, becoming Christine Jorgensen.

7 April 1948. The World Health Organisation was set up with its headquarters in Geneva. Its aim was to attain the highest possible level of health for all peoples.

3 April 1947. In the UK, the private medical company BUPA was founded.

Penicillin

31 December 1943, Penicillin was finally in common usage in hospitals, its development having been delayed by the War. Its first successful use had been on 13 February 1941. Another �wonder drug�, sulphonamide, was also useful against infections.

3 May 1941, The first successful treatment by penicillin. A patient was treated for a 4 inch carbuncle, which was cleared and the patient was discharged on 15 May 1941.

13 February 1941, The �miracle drug� penicillin was used on a human for the first time; a policeman from Oxford, UK. However he died on 15 March 1941 because not enough was available. It then took some 2,000 litres of mould culture fluid to produce enough penicillin for a single case of infection. However Florey subsequently discovered another species of mould that produced 1,000 times as much penicillin. See 31 December 1943.

24 August 1940, The Lancet reported on the first purification of penicillin by professors Howard Florey and Ernest Chain.

9 January 1929, Fleming treated his assistant Stuart Craddock for an infection by washing it out with a penicillin solution; this cleared the infection.

15 September 1928. Alexander Fleming reported the discovery of penicillin.

12 January 1926. In Paris, the Pasteur Institute announced the discovery of an anti-tetanus vaccine.

1940, Herbert M Evans used radioactive iodine to prove that iodine is used by the thyroid gland.

1940, Karl Landsteiner and Alexander S Weiner discovered a relationship between human and rhesus monkey blood cells, and discovered the rhesus (Rh) factor.

21 June 1939, Baseball player Lou Gehrig retired from the game, forced to stop playing due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a wasting disease that would later be named after him.

26 May 1939, Charles H Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, died.

1938, Tom D Spies pioneered the treatment of pellagra with niacin.

1938, Englis surgeon Philip Wiles developed the first artificial hip replacement, using stainless steel.

1937, Pharmacologist Daniele Bovet developed the first antihistamine.

7 December 1934, The first artificially-made hormone, testosterone, was created by Us scientists.

1933, Pantothenic acid, one of the vitamin B complex, was isolated from liver.

1928, Dorothy Eustis, from the US, set up a guide dog training centre at Vervey, Switzerland, after habing heard of how a pet Alsatian dog looked after its owner who had been blinded as a soldier in World War One. Following this the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association was set up in Britain in 1934.

12 October 1928. The first iron lung was used at the Boston Children�s Hospital, Massachusetts.

6 April 1928, In Italy, handshaking was banned as it was deemed unhygienic.

1 March 1928, Vitamin F was discovered by US scientist Dr Herbert Evans.

1 June 1925, Danish hygienists Louis Fridericia and Eiler Holm show that vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness.

9 September 1923, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek was born in Yonkers, New York, USA. In 1966 he succeeded in transferring kuru, a disease of the central nervous system thought to be spread by cannibalism, to chimpanzees. This was the first time a viral disease of the central nervous system had been transferred from humans to another species.

17 July 1921, Alick Isaacs was born. In 1957, along with Jean Lindenmann, he discovered interferons, chemicals produced by the human body to fight viruses.

1919, In the UK, the Ministry of Health was established by Act of Parliament.

22 June 1918, Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the palliative care movement, was born (died 14 July 2005)

22 February 1918. The world�s tallest man, Robert Wadlow, was born, weighing 8 � lbs. He grew to 8 foot 11 � inches in height and weighed 31 stone 5 lbs, when he died in 1940.

1916, US psychologist Lewis M Terman invented the term IQ for Intelligence Quotient; plastic surgery advanced as a result of war inuries.

19 October 1916, Jean Dausset, immunologist, was born.

25 August 1916, Frederick C Robbins was born in Auburn, Alabama. In 1948, along with John Franklin Enders (born 10 February 1897, West Hartford, Connecticut) and Thomas Huckle Wells (born 15 June 1915, Ann Arbor), he discovered how to grow the mumps virus in chick tissue using penicillin to prevent bacterial contamination.

8 June 1916, Professor Sir Francis Crick, who along with J D Watson discovered DNA, was born.

20 August 1915, Paul Erlich, bacteriologist, dies of a stroke in Bad Homburg, Germany. Born in Strehlen, Silesia (now Poland) on 14 March 1854, he laid the foundations for the use of chemotherapy in treating disease.

1912, Casimir Funck coined the term �vitamin(e)�.

28 February 1911, Denis Parsons Burkitt, surgeon, was born.

13 August 1910, Florence Nightingale died.

3 May 1910, Howard Taylor Ricketts, US pathologist, died in Mexico City from the typhus he caught whilst researching the disease.

1909, W Johannsen in The Netherlands introduced the term �gene�; P T Levene discovered RNA and DNA

16 March 1908. Florence Nightingale, aged 87, was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. Born in 1820 to a middle class family in Derbyshire, she became interested in hygienic care for the sick after visiting a German religious hospital in 1850 which specialised in hygiene and care. In 1854 she was disturbed by terrible reports of the conditions in military hospitals there. She took 37 nurses and arrived at the hospital at Scutari, arriving on 4 November 1854. The military did not at first take her seriously, but her determination won through and she reduced the hospital�s death rate from 42% to just 2%. After the Crimean War she trained nurses in London and worked to improve the care for the sick.

1907, Bubonic Plague killed 1.3 million people in India.

1907, C Ross Harrison developed a tissue culture technique; Ivan Pavlov in Russia published Conditioned Reflexes.

29 November 1907. Florence Nightingale, aged 87, the �Lady with the Lamp�, was presented with the Order of Merit by Edward VII for her work during the Crimean War, see 4 November 1854.

23 March 1907, Daniele Bovet was born in Neuch�tel, Switzerland. In 1936 he discovered the effectiveness of sulphanilamide in treating streptococci.

1906, The term �allergy� was coined by Austrian paediatrician Clemens von Parquet.

4 December 1906, Robert Wallace Wilkins was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1950 he developed the use of reserpine for the treatment of high blood pressure.

19 September 1906, Ernst Chain was born in Berlin, Germany. Along with Howard Florey (born Adelaide, Australia, 24 September 1908) he developed, in 1940, the use of penicillin as an antiobiotic.

1905, Zirm, in Austria, performed the first cornea transplant.

30 October 1905. Aspirin went on sale in the UK for the first time.

17 February 1905, A typhus outbreak occurred in London�s East End.

13 October 1904, Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams.

31 July 1903, Alexander Graham Bell�s proposition that radium could be used to treat cancer appeared in the US journal, Science.

14 April 1903, In New York, the typhus vaccine was discovered by Dr Harry Plotz.

1902, The UK passed an Act providing for the training of midwives, and barring untrained ones from practising. Infant mortality was a major concern at this time in Britain.

1902, The hormone secretin, a digestive hormone, was discovered by WM Bayliss and EH Starling.

10 January 1902, New Zealander Ellen Dougherty became the world's first registered nurse

15 December 1901, British physician Joseph Everett Dutton identified sleeping sickness �worms� as trypanosomes.

15 November 1901. The first practical hearing aid, the Acousticon, was patented by Miller Reese Hutchinson of New York. Earlier devices such as the ear trumpet were bulky and impractical. Reese;s idea was to have a battery powered device that could be set to the wearer�s own preferences; it converted the desired sounds into electrical impulses that were transmitted to a carbon speaker in the earpiece that turned the electricity back into sound. Unwanted sounds could be filtered out.

1900, Harley Street, London, had become a centre for medical consultants. From 36 in 1873, it now housed almost 150.

3 September 1900, An outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Glasgow.

6 March 1899, The painkiller Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was patented by Felix Hoffman. The active ingredient is derived from willow.

24 September 1898, Sir Howard Florey, British pathologist and joint discoverer of penicillin with Sir Ernest Chain, was born in Adelaide, Australia.

2 June 1898, Paul Louis Simond, fighting bubonic plague in India, theorised that fleas transmitted the disease from rats to humans.

7 January 1898, Ernest Hart, medical journalist, died (born 26 January 1835). He raised membership of the British Medical Association from 2,000 to 19,000, and saw the British Medical Journal expand from 20 to 64 pages.

10 October 1897, Felix Hoffman, German chemist, invented the painkiller aspirin.

1896, The Sphymomanometer, to measure blood pressure, was invented in Italy by Dr Scipio Riva-Rocci.

1896, The first hormone, adrenaline, was discovered by John Jacob, US biochemist. The term �hormone�, derived from the Greek horman, to urge on, to stir up, was coined around 1905.

28 February 1896, Philip Showalter Hench was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1948 he discovered that cortisone can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

5 January 1896. The German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen gave the first demonstration of X rays.

1895, Heroin was marketed by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as a cough medicine for children.

8 November 1895. Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X rays, during an experiment at the University of Wurtzburg. He made the first radiograph, or X-ray, of his wife�s hand, on 22 December 1895. In 1896 Emil Grubbe, having noticed the damage that X-ray exposure did to his own skin, experimented with applying rays to cancerous tissue; he treated a woman with breast cancer, but did not publicise the results until several years later.

18 September 1895, The first chiropractic adjustment was made by Daniel David Palmer, in Iowa, USA.

1893, Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasako proved that The Plague was a bacterial disease carried by infected rat fleas.

29 June 1888, The first appendectomy was carried out in the UK, at the London Hospital by Professor Frederick Treves.

4 June 1887, The Pasteur Institute was founded by Louis Pasteur in Paris.

27 April 1887, The first appendix operation, for removing an infected appendix, was carried out by George Thomas Morton on a 26-year-old man with acute appendicitis, in Philadelphia, USA.

6 July 1885, Louis Pasteur, 63, administered his first successful treatment of rabies with anti rabies vaccine made from a weakened rabies virus.

25 November 1884, English surgeon Rickman Godlee undertook the first operation to remove a brain tumour.

6 August 1881. Alexander Fleming, Scottish bacteriologist who discovered penicillin, was born in Scotland. Fleming specialised in bacteriology at St Mary�s Hospital, London. The enormous death toll amongst soldiers suffering from infected wounds left Fleming seeking a chemical that could fight the infection. Whilst clearing up Petri dishes in which he had been growing bacteria, Fleming stumbled on a mouldy dish in which the bacteria had been killed. However it was not until the Second World War that chemists really took an interest in the development of penicillin. Fleming was knighted in 1944 and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945.

5 May 1881, Louis Pasteur tested his inoculation against anthrax on an ox, cows and sheep.

1880, Louis Pasteur accidentally discovered the technique for inoculation, by injection of a weakened pathogen. He went on holiday, leaving a solution of chicken cholera bacteria, which he did not realise would grow weaker over time. On return he injected chickens with these bacteria; to his surprise they became ill but survived, and then were able to resist full strength bacteria also.

14 May 1878, Vaseline, a trademarked form of petroleum jelly, was first sold.

26 October 1877, British surgeon Joseph Lister performed the first operation to repair a fractured kneecap.

24 June 1877, The St John�s Ambulance brigade was formed, as the Ambulance Association, by the Red Cross.

14 January 1875, Albert Schweitzer, physician, was born.

1874, Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian doctor, discovered the bacteria which causes leprosy. However drug s to treat the disease were only developed in the 1940s.

17 June 1867. Joseph Lister performed a mastectomy on his sister Isabella, using carbolic acid as an antiseptic. It was the first operation under antiseptic conditions.

15 June 1867, US physician John Stough Bobbs preformed the first successful gallstone operation.

13 August 1865, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis died in Vienna, Austria, of childbed fever, a disease he had tried hard to eliminate.

12 August 1865, British surgeon Joseph Lister, 38, operating at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, pioneered the use of carbolic acid as a disinfectant, aiming to reduce the 50% mortality rate amongst amputees.

20 April 1862, Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard completed their first vaccination tests.

24 June 1860, The training of nurses in Britain started at St Thomas Hospital, London.

15 June 1860, Florence Nightingale started her School for Nurses at St Thomas�s Hospital, London.

1858, The first edition of the essential medical textbook, Gray�s Anatomy, appeared.� It was written by Henry Gray (1827-61), lecturer in anatomy at St George�s Hospital, London. Its 40^th edition appeared in 2008.

23 November 1858, The General Medical Council held its first meeting in London. It was set up under the Medical Act 1858 to maintain a register of qualified medical parctitioners in the UK, and to regulate the standards of medical education and examinations.

2 August 1858, Under the Medical Act, UK doctors were now required to be registered.

4 November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari (Crimean War).

1849, Addison�s Disease, a degeneration of the endocrine glands, was first recognised by physician Thomas Addison (1793-1860).

7 May 1847, The American Medical Association was founded.

26 March 1845, The sticking plaster was patented.

21 June 1843, The Royal College of Surgeons was formed from the original Barber �Surgeon Company.

1840, Swiss chemist Charles J Choss demonstrated the need for calcium for proper bone development.

1837, Leeches were heavily used in medicine. At Bartholomews, London, 96,300 leeches were used during 1837, up from 52,000 in 1822 and 24,700 in 1821. Heavy bleeding was used to induce unconsciousness before an operation such as an amputation, in the absence of anaesthetics.

1836, The first nurses training school in the world was opened in Kaiserwerth, Germany by Pastor Theodore Fiedner and his wife. The Quaker philanthropist Elizabeth Fry visited there and was so impressed she opened the firest nurses training school ln England in London in 1840. Florence Nightingale was trained at the school in Kaiserwerth.

31 December 1833, During the year 1833, doctors in France imported 41.5 million leeches, actually making it an endangered species.

1832, Britain passed the Anatomy Act. This was an attempt to curb the activities of the �resurrection men�, who dug up freshly-buried corpses for dissection in medical schools. The Act provided for the compulsory requisition of the bodies of paupers who died in workhouses, for this purpose. It contributed to the general fear of workhouses.

1832, The British Medical Association was founded. Until 1856 it was known as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association. It publishes the British Medical Journal.

1832, The water bed was developed by Scottish surgeon Neil Arnott as a means of improving the comfort of his patients.

10 January 1832, Thomas Hodgkin presented a paper to the London Medical and Surgical Society entitled �Some Morbid Appearances of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen�, documenting a rare lymphatic condition know known as Hodgkins Disease.

1830, Physician Marchall Hall (born Basford, England, 18 February 1790) denounced bloodletting as a treatment for disease.

1828, Estonian naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer founded the science of embryology, when he discovered the mammalian ovum.

24 December 1828, The trial of bodysnatcher William Burke began in Edinburgh, see 31 October 1828. The other bodysnatcher, William Hare, had turned King�s Evidence and was not brought to trial. Sentenced to death, Burke was hanged on 28 January 1829 in front of a large crowd.

31 October 1828, Edinburgh bodysnatchers Burke and Hare claimed their last victim, a beggar woman named Docherty.

1827, William Herschel devised an early contact lens, a glass capsule filled with animal jelly.

5 October 1823, The British medical journal, The Lancet, was first published. It was set up by English surgeon Thomas Wakley.

1821, Charles Bell, born Edinburgh 11/1744, gave the first descriotion of Bell�s Palsy, a facial paralysis.

20 December 1820, The Academie de Medicine was established in Paris.

1818, Jean Baptiste Dumas, born Alais, France, 14 July 1800, first treated goitre with iodine.

1815, In Britain, the Apothecaries Act now required all apothecaries in England and Wales, excepting those already in practice, to be examined and licenced by the Society of Apothecaries after 5 years apprenticeship.

1815, Renne Lannec invented the stethoscope (named after the Greek stethos, meaning breast). It comprised a roll of paper, then a wooden cylinder, to listen to the chest. It was intended to avoid the indignity of having to place an ear next to a woman�s chest.

23 October 1814, At the Duke of York Hospital, Chelsea, surgeon Joseph Constantine performed the first �nose job�.� Using a flap of skin from the patient�s forehead (a technique used in India in 800 BC) he reconstructed the nose of a soldier disfigured by toxic mercury treatment.

1801, Thomas Young (born 13 July 1773 in Milverton, England) discovered the cause of astigmatism.

1794, John Dalton gave the earliest account of colour blindness, which he described as Daltonism, as he also had the condition.

21 November 1785, William Beaumont, US Army surgeon, the foirst person to observe and describe digestion as it occurred in the stomach, was born in Lebanon Connecticut (died 1853)

15 September 1780, Giacobo Rodriguez Pereire, an inventor of language for the deaf, died in Paris (born 11 April 1715 in Estrenadura, Spain)

1774, Lazzaro Spallanzani discovered the digestive action of saliva.

1772, Italian anatomist Antonio Scarpa (born Motta, 13 June 1747) discovered the labyrinth of the inner ear; the semicircular canals, vestibule and cochlea.

1761, Morgagni published an anatomy textbook based on observations from over 600 dead bodies in autopsies.

1748, John Fothergill, born in England, 8 March 1712, gave the first description of diphtheria in his Account of the putrid sore throat.

1747, Thalassotherapy,bathing in sea water, was developed as a therapy by English physician Richard Russell (1687 � 1759). He tested his theories in Brighton. The idea was that beneficial elements found in seawater, such as calcium, iodine, magnesium, potassium and sodium could be absorbed through the skin. The therapy was intended to help with arthritis, depression, eczema, psoriasis and rheumatism.

20 May 1747, British naval surgeon James Lind (born 4 October 1716 in Edinburgh, Scotland) began an investigation to determine the cause of scurvy. He discovered that oranges and lemons were a good cure. In 1753 he published his Treatise on scurvy.

1736, US physician William Douglass described scarlet fever.

1730,� George Martine performed the first tracheotomy for the treatment of diphtheria.

9 August 1721, Prisoners in Newgate Gaol were offered a pardon if they agreed to be inoculated to test Dr Charles Maitland�s theories on the subject. Seven men volunteered, and all survived to live in freedom.

11 April 1715, Giacobo Rodriguez Pereire, an inventor of language for the deaf, was born in Estrenadura, Spain (died 15 September 1780 in Paris).

1691,� Clopton Havers published the first complete textbook on the bones of the human body.

18 November 1686, King Louis XIV of France underwent a successful operation for haemorrhoids. The surgeon, Charles Francois, had specially-designed tools for the operation, and had practised on dozens of peasants and prisoners, some of whom died.

2 September 1666, The Great Fire of London helped end the Great Plague.

28 September 1665. London was in the grip of The Plague; 7,000 died in the last week alone. In July 1665, deaths averaged 200 a week. People were fleeing the city; graveyards were full, and corpses were thrown into Plague Pits.

7 June 1665, The Plague was first reported in London. It was a very hot day. 70,000 people would die of the Plague by October. Plague forced Parliament to meet in Oxford.

16 September 1663, The Swedish Collegium Medicorum was founded. This later became the Swedish National Board of Health.

1643, Physician Daniel Whistler, born in England 1619, gave the first medical description of rickets in his thesis to the University of Leiden.

1546, The first Regius Professor of Medicine was appointed at Cambridge.

1546, The first description of typhus, and the nature of contagion, were made by Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro in his work, De contagion et contagiosis morbis.

1543, At Basel, Switzerland, Vesalius published his great work - De humani corporis fabrica (The Structure of the Human Body). This contained the first accurate anatomical drawings of the human body.

1540, The United Barber-Surgeon�s Company was established in Britain.

1528, The first manual of surgery, Die Kliene Chirugia, was produced by Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim), a Swiss physician and alchemist.

1518, In England, �epidemic� diseases were made notifiable by law.

1508, Leonardo da Vinci drew plans of an early contact lens; a glass lens filled with water, to magnify vision.

1500, The first Caesarian section, in which both mother and baby survived, was carried out by Jacob Nufer, Swiss sow-gelder, on his own wife.

The Black Death

1407, An outbtreak of the Black Death in London killed several thousand people.

1403, The Doge of Venice imposed a �quarantine� period on visitors to curb the Black Death. The waiting time was standardised at 40 days in 1485.

1382, Recurrence of the Black Death, generally less severe than before, although Ireland was badly affected this time. By 1400 it had killed some 75 million people, completely depopulating some areas.

1374, Venice was now checking ships before entry bto the port, and excluding any found to be carrying the Black Death.

1371, A further recurrence of the Black Death in Englaqnd, again less severe than the last time.

1361, A recurrence of the Black Death in England, also across Europe from France to Poland. It was less severe than the last time, and mainly affected children.

1352, The Black Death reached Moscow, and also spread back eastwards to India and China again.

1350, The Black Death reached Scotland and Wales.

1350, Economically, the Black Death caused major price changes in England. Thed price of a good horse fell from 40 shillings to 16 shillings. Cows, oxen and sheep also fell in price, but the price of corn rose due to a shortage of field hands to harvest it.

1349, The Black Death killed 30% to 50% of the population of England and Wales. A truce was called in the war with Scotland; Scottish soldiers invading England carried the pneumonic form, transmissible from person to person without rats or fleas, home with them.

24 August 1349, The Black Death broke out in Elbing (Poland).

31 May 1349, The mortality rate from the Black Death in London finally began to ease.

1348, The Black Death reduced the population of Locarno, Italy, from 4,800 to 700.

29 September 1348, The Black Death reached London.

24 June 1348, The Black Death outbreak hit Melcombe Regis (Weymouth, Dorset in England).

4/1348, The Black Death reached Cyprus and Florence..

25 December 1347, First cases of the plague recorded in the city of Split in Croatia.

1 November 1347, Black Death spreads to Aix-en-Provence in France.

1 September 1347, The Black Death reached the French city of Marseilles.

1347, 1348. The Black Death reached Greece in September 1347, and also appeared in Sicily and southern Italy. By January 1348 Pisa, Venice, Avignon, and Arles were stricken, and by April 1348 Toulouse, Spain, and Lyons had the disease. June 1348 saw the Black Death arrive in England, and by 1349 Germany and Brittany were suffering.

1343, Tartars besieging the Genoese merchants trading post at Caffa, Crimea, catapulted their dead bodies into the besieged town before they withdrew. Some of these corpses carried the Black Death.. Some merchants died on the road home, but others carried the Black Death to Constantinople, Genoa, Venice and other ports.

1340, Travellers returning to Europe from China brought the Black Death back with them, in the rats-borne ticks and fleeas that travelled with them.

1333, The Black Death began in China, as starvation and a drought made the population there vulnerable.

1315, Italian surgeon Mondino de Luzzi held public dissections; he published the manual Anatomia.

1275, The book Chirugia, by William of Saliceto, contained the earliest writer records of dissection, a practice discouraged by the Church since 1163.

1235, The first dissections of a human body since the time of Ptolemy, 2rd century BCE were held at the School of Medicine, Salerno, an institution supported by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.

1231, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that doctor training schools must hold a dissection of a human body once every five years.

1230, Leprosy was brought into Europe by the Crusaders.

1208, A school of medicine was founded at Montpelier by students from Bologna.

1167, The Council of Tours forbade the clergy from practising surgery, so this skill was taken over by the barber-surgeons.

18 June 1037, Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna died. His writings were valued sources for European doctors.

594, The Plague ended in Europe. It had killed half the population.

542, The Plague hit Constantinople, imported by rats from Egypt. In 547 it reached Britain.

219, Death of the Chinese physician Zhang (born 152), who compiled a large compendium of all the medical knowledge in China.

210, Death of Greek physician Galen (born ca. 130). He promoted bloodletting as a cure for many ailments. His thoughts dominated Western medicine for the next 1500 years,until Renaissance physicians such as Andreas Vesalius challenged his views.

265 BCE, Rome learnt of Greek medical techniques, from Greek prisoners of war.

290 BCE, Eristratus investigated the human nervous system. In the course of public human dissections, Eristratus and Herophilus noted the existence of the liver, spleen, retina, duodenum, overies, Fallopian tubes and prostate gland. They deduced that the brain, not the heart, is the seat of emotions.

430 � 432 BCE, The Plague in Athens.

1700 BCE, The Ebers Egyptian papyrus (discovered in 1872 AD) records the incidence of tooth decay and ophthalmic problems. At the same time, smallpox was recorded in China.

2595 BCE, The first Chinese medical text, Nei Ching, was published. It detailed the use of a range of medicines, including camphor, opium, and sodium sulphate.

2700 BCE, Acupuncture came into use in China.

2980 BCE, Imhotep, physician and advisor to Egyptian Pharaoh Imhotep, began to research medical as opposed to religious cures for illnesses.

3000 BCE, Autopsy techniques developed from the Egyptian embalming and preservation methods.

3050 BCE, Date of earliest known medical text, the Edwin Smith Papyrus.

Appendix 1 � Dentistry

1967, A 20-year study of fluoridation of the water supply in Evanston, Illinois, showed that cavities had been reduced by 58%.

17 November 1955. Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into the water supply.

1945, Fluorine began to be added to the water supply in the US.

1908, Dr Frederick McKay, a dentist in Colorado, USA, noticed that some of his patient�s teeth had become mottled, and that these teeth were not so prone to decay as un-mottled teeth. Guessing that something in the drinking water was causing this, he discovered, after studying other regions in the US, that fluorine in the water was the cause. This gave rise to the concept of fluoridating the water, enough to arrest decay without causing mottling.

15 January 1907, Gold dental inlays were first described by William Taggart, who invented them.

22 July 1878, The UK Parliament prohibited medically-untrained people from calling themselves �dentists�.

26 January 1875, The first battery electric powered dental drill was used. Mains-powered dental drills were not used until 1908.

19 December 1846, The first dental extraction under anaesthetic was performed in Britain.

11 December 1844, Dr John M Riggs, of Hartford Connecticut, successfully extracted a tooth painlessly from Dr Horace Wells using nitrous oxide gas. He performed 40 more such operations, but abandoned them after a patient nearly died from an overdose of the gas; Dr Riggs was unaware that the nitrous oxide should be mixed with oxygen.

1840, The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery opened in Maryland, the first US dental school. The American Society of Dental Surgeons was established. The American Journal of Dental Science began publication.

1834, Amalgam, or mercury alloy, now used for fiulling teeth.

1800, Tooth drawers would scour recent battlefields in order to recover teeth form dead soldiers, to use in making dentures. Barrels of such teeth were shipped to Europe from the USA after the American Civil War.

1790, The dental drill was invented by John Greenwood, dentist to George Washington.

1785, Porcelain false teeth first used in America; they were used in France from 1788.

1771, John Hunter (born 13 February 1728) published The natural history of the human teeth. This laid the foundations for the science of dentistry

104, First mention of dentures, by the Roman poet Martial, who died in this year.

975 BCE, False teeth, for cosmetic purposes, in use by the Etruscans.

2900 BCE, Tooth filling was practised in Sumer.

Appendix 2 � Heart and Blood Cirulation,

7 January 2022, David Bennett became the first person to receive a pig heart transplant. The pig has been genetically modified to reduce the human rejection factor.

2011, A continuous-flow artificial heart was developed that made blood flow through the body with no heartbeat or pulse.

6 February 2005, Jerrick de Leon, born 13 weeks premature, became the youngest infant to survive open-heart surgery.

2 September 2001, Death of heart transplant pioneer Dr Christiaan Barnard.

2 July 2001, In the US, the first self-contained battery powered mechanical heart, the Abiocor, was implanted in Robert Tools. He survived 5 months.

1995, In Britain, 30% of deaths were caused by coronary heart disease, compared to just 1% of deaths in 1930. The increased prevalence of high fat foods, previously only accessible to the very wealthy, was blamed.

26 August 1994, In Britain, a man aged 62 received the world�s frist battery-powered heart,

16 May 1989. The first successful hole-in-the �heart operation on an adult was performed at the Brook Hospital, Greenwich, London. The patient was 66-year-old Eileen Molyneaux.

2 November 1986, Britain�s first artificial heart transplant operation was performed at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge.

24 June 1985, Keith Hardcastle, Britain�s longest surviving heart transplant patient, died 6 years after his operation.

19 February 1985, William J Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to leave hospital.

26 October 1984, Baby Fae, 14 days old, received a transplanted heart from a baboon., She survived a further 20 days.

2 December 1982, At the University of Utah, 61 year old retired dentist Barney Clark became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart. He lived for 112 days with the device.

15 July 1970. An experimental pacemaker was fitted to a 56 year old woman at the National Heart Centre in London.

4 April 1969, Denton Cooley implanted the first artificial heart.

3 May 1968. Britain�s first heart transplant.

11 January 1968. The world�s fifth heart transplant was performed in New York.

2 January 1968, Christiaan Barnard performed a second heart transplant; the recipient Philip Blaiberg survived 594 days, proving the technique was feasible.

3 December 1967. Professor Christian Barnard, born 1923, performed the world�s first heart transplant in Cape Town. The recipient, a 53-year old grocer called Waskansky, who received the heart of a 25 year old traffic casualty, died 18 days later of pneumonia. The drugs given to suppress rejection compromised Waskansky�s immune system. A second heart transplant patient (see 2 January 1968) survived much longer.

1964, A baboon heart was transplanted into Baby Fae. She had a evere hgeart defect. She lived for 20 days with the xenotransplant.

23 January 1964, Dr James Hardy, at the University of Mississippi, USA, attempted the first animal to human heart transplant. He implanted the heart of a chimpanzee named Bino into the chest of Boyd Rush, aged 68. Rush died 90 minutes later.

20 September 1963, The first pre-natal blood transfusion was performed at the National Women�s hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, by Professor George Green, on a child born to Mrs E McLeod.

1963, The first artificial heart was patented.

22 July 1960, The implantable pacemaker was patented by Wilson Greatbach, New York, USA, for Wilson Greatbach Inc.

31 October 1958. Ake Senning, Swedish doctor, in Stockholm implanted the first internal heart pacemaker.

4 December 1955, The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations was founded in Luxembourg.

11 September 1952, US surgeon Charles Hufnagel implanted the first artificial heart valve.

2 September 1952, The heart by-pass machine made open heart surgery possible. The first open heart surgery was performed, in Minnesota, USA.

4 October 1952. The first external pacemaker was developed by Dr Paul Zoll of the Harvard Medical School, and was fitted to David Schwartz. The first internal pacemaker was not developed until 1958.

8 March 1952. The first artificial heart was used on a 41-year old man. It kept him alive at the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, for 80 minutes.

1 April 1950, Charles R Drew (born 3 June 1904 in Washington DC) was killed in a car accident in Burlington, North Carolina. He discovered that blood plasma, unlike whole blood, could be stored for long periods without spoiling; this facilitated the blood transfusion system. For this, Drew became the first Black American man in the US to be awarded a Doctor of Science Degree.

11 May 1946, Robert Jarvik, US inventor of the artificial heart, was born in Midland, Michigan

1937,The first artificial heart was implanted in a dog.

1937, The Rhesus blood factor was discovered by Karl Landsteiner and Alexander S Wiener.

15 March 1937. Bernard Faustus set up America�s first blood bank at Cook County Hospital, Chicago.

1930, Karl Landsteiner won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the blood groups, making transfusions more successful.

8 November 1922, Dr Christian Barnard, South African surgeon who pioneered heart transplants, was born in Beaufort West, Cape Province.

27 March 1914. The first successful blood transfusion took place, in a hospital in Brussels. Earlier blood transfusions had met with the problem of the blood clotting, but in 1914 it was discovered that sodium citrate could be used as an anti-coagulant. This discovery led to the development of modern blood banks.

21 June 1903, Dutch physiologist Willem Einthoven described the first electrocardiograph

14 November 1900, Dr Karl Landsteiner of the Pathological and Anatomical Institute of Vienna announced the discovery of the three major blood groups.

9 September 1896. Surgery was performed on the heart for the first time, at Frankfurt City Hospital, Germany. The 22 year old patient had been stabbed in the heart during a pub brawl and stitches were inserted in the organ.

1838, Jons Jakob Berzelius pioneered the understanding of haemoglobin in the blood, realising the role of iron in oxygen transportation in the body.

25 September 1818, The first blood transfusion using human blood, as opposed to animal blood, took place in London, at Guys Hospital.

1675, Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek, aged 43, gave the first accurate description of red blood cells. He pioneered the development of the microscope. See also Technology and Innovation.

1669, Richars Lower�s Tractatus del Corde described the properties of the heart as a muscle,� and how blood changes colour as it passes through the lungs.

12 June 1667. The first blood transfusion was made at Montpellier University. A 15 year old boy was given 9 oz. of blood from a lamb � surprisingly he recovered from this, and the fever he had been suffering. It was likely that blood clotting, of the sheep�s blood, had prevented much from actually entering the boy�s own bloodstream.

1658, Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam gave the first description of red blood cells.

3 June 1657, William Harvey, anatomist and physician, died near Saffron Walden, Essex. He discovered and demonstrated the circulation of the blood.

12 February 1637, Jan Swammerdam was born this day in Amsterdam. In 1658 he became the first person to see and describe red blood cells.

1628, William Harvey showed that blood circulated in the bodies of animals. Until then it had been assumed that arterial and venous blood, different in colour, were separate and had different finctions. Some thought that arterial blood carried some sort of energy from the air to the muscles, and venous blood carried food from the liver. By dissection and logical arguent, in his work Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus ('The Anatomical Function of the Movement of the Heart and the Blood in Animals'), Harvey showed that there was just one blood system, pumped around by the heart. However until oxygen was discovered there was no known reason for the blood to circulate, and until capillaries were discovered there was no known mechanism for this circulation between arteries and veins.

21 May 1618, Death of Italian physician Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, who discovered one-way valves in veins.

1 April 1578, William Harvey, British anatomist who discovered the circulation of the blood, was born at Folkestone.

1540, The pulmonary circulation of the blood was discovered by Michael Servetus, Spanish theologian and physician. He was later burnt at the stake for heresy.

492 BCE, The Greek philosopher Empedocles of Sicily recognised the heart as the centre of the system of blood vessels; he wrongly attributed emotions to this organ also.

Appendix 2 � Kidneys and Bladder

30 September 2021, At the University of Alabama Hospital, 2 pig kidneys were transplanted into a brain-dead person. They survived 77 hours.

25 September 2021, At New York University Hospital, a pig kidney was transplanted into a brain dead patient, who survived 54 hours.

16 February 1989, Harley Street kidney specialist Dr Raymond Crockett resigned over a �cash for kidneys� scandal in which organs were taken from poor Turks for wealthy patients.

1964, Home kidney dialysis was introduced in the USA

1963, Chimpanzee kidnneys were transplanted intok 13 peopole. One survived for 9 months.

1963, Baboon kidneys were transplanted into 6 people, but none survived more than 3 months.

1960, A long term dialysis machine was invented.

30 October 1960, Surgeon Michael Woodruff performed the UK�s first kidney transplant.

23 December 1954, The first successful kidney transplant was performed. Earlier transplant attempts had been thwarted by the problem of rejection; the recipient in this case went on to live another 8 years.

17 June 1950. In the US, the first kidney transplant took place. The patient, 44 year old Ruth Tucker, survived for 5 years but then died when the transplanted kidney failed.

1943, The first dialysis machine for patients with kidney failure was invented. It provided only short-term dialysis whilst the kidney recovered.

24 August 1906, Kidney transplants were carried out on dogs, at a medical conference in Toronto, Canada.

1861, The principle of dialysis was demonstrated for the first time, by Glasgow-born chemist Thomas Graham (1805-69). This led to the invention of the first kidney dialysis machine in 1943.

1678, The excretory ducts of the human kidneys (Bellini�s Diucts) were discovered by the Italian anatomist Lorenzo Bellini, 35; Bellini had taught medicine at Pisa since 1664. Bellini also discovered the action of nerves on muscles.

Liver

1966, A chimpanzee liver was transplanted into a child, but it only lasted a few days,

1 March 1963, Thomas Starzl performed the first liver transplant.

Appendix 3 � Reproduction, STDs and Childbirth

31 July 2000. Cases of sexually transmitted diseases had risen sharply among young people in the past year, according to official UK figures.

16 November 1992. A brain-dead woman had been artificially kept alive to allow her foetus to be born; however she miscarried and the life support was turned off.

30 January 1990, Surgeons at Guy�s Hospital, London, performed the first surgery on a baby in its mother�s womb.

1 October 1987, 48 year old surrogate grandmother Mrs Pat Anthony gave birth to triplets for her daughter Karen Ferriera-Jorge in Johannesburg, South Africa.

15 August 1987. Septuplets, three boys and four girls, were born to Susan Halton in Liverpool�s Oxford Street Hospital.� Their combined weight was 9 � pounds. None survived; the last lived until 31 August 1987.

29 March 1986, The first test-tube quintuplets were born, in London.

4 January 1985, Mrs Kim Cotton, believed to be the first commercial surrogate mother in Britain, gave birth to a girl.

1983, In Australia, the first birth from a woman without ovaries, using donated eggs, was achieved.

18 November 1983, In Liverpool Janet Walton, 31, gave birth to sextuplets, all girls.

28 December 1981, The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

25 July 1978. The world�s first �test tube� (IVF) baby was born, in Britain. Louise Joy Brown was born by Caesarean section at Oldham General Hospital, Lancashire, to Lesley Brown. She had been conceived by combining the sperm and egg in a Petri Dish, because her mother�s Fallopian Tubes were blocked.

1977, The first successful case of in-vitro fertilisation. A couple, John and Lesley Brown had tried and failed to conceive naturally for 9 years. Scientists Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe removed an egg from Lesley�s ovaries and injected John�s sperm into the egg. Two days later the now 8-celled embryo was implanted back into Lesley�s uterus. A baby girl was successfully born on 25 July 1978. By 2017, some 5 million babies had been conceived in-vitro.

28 March 1974, In Britain, the NHS Family Planning Service was inaugurated.

11 January 1974. The first surviving sextuplets were born to Mrs Sue Rosenberg in Cape Town, South Africa.

16 October 1972. Venereal Disease cases amongst under 16s in the UK were up 10% on last year.

13 November 1969, In London, a woman had quintuplets after fertility drug treatment.

13 February 1969. Scientists in Cambridge announced the first successful in-vitro fertilisation of a human being.

1 December 1968, Henry Nadler first used amniocentesis to diagnose Down�s Syndrome prenatally.

1953, The first birth using a human egg that had been fertilised using previously-frozen sperm.

17 September 1953, The first successful separation of Siamese Twins took place, at the Ochnser Foundation Hospital in New Orleans.

1952, Virginia Apgar developed the Apgar Score to assess the viability of a newborn infant, in order to combat high neonatal mortality rates. Still used today, each infant is scored 0, 1 or 2 on 5 parameters; heart rate, breathing, reflexes, muscle tone and colour. The result is a score out of ten indicating any need for medical intervention.

1944, In Britain the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommended that 70% of births should take place in hospitals. Previously most births took place at the mother�s home, with the assistance of a midwife. The cost of a hospital birth, before the inception of the NHS, was 6 guineas,but for those women who could afford it, a hospital birth was a welcome respite from rationing, laundry and housekeeping duties.

15 December 1942, The British Government began a campaign against venereal disease, which had increased markedly since the war began.

26 November 1928, The first twins to be born by Caesarean section in Britain were delivered in Manchester.

3 November 1916, There was concern about rising rates of sexually-transmitted diseases in Britain, with 50,000 cases reported amongst servicemen in 1916.

1900, The age of menarche in Western girls was down to 14, from 17 in the late 1700s. By 2000 it was down to 13, and was around 12.5 by 2017.

17 January 1874. The original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, died within three hours of each other, aged 62. Chang and Eng meant Left and Right in Thailand, where they were born.

11 May 1811. The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, were born of Chinese parents in Maklong, Siam. They were joined at the chest.

31 January 1747, The first venereal disease clinic opened at London Lock Hospital.

1741, William Smellie became the first obstetrician to make a scientific study of childbirth. From 1741

Smellie gave midwives and medical students in London unprecedented practical lectures on childbirth. He achieved this by offering his services to poor women on condition that his students could attend the birth. In 1752 he published the Treatise on midwifery, the first scientific approach to obstetrics.

1721, Jean Palfryn introduced the use of forceps for facilitating birth.

1500, Jakob Nufer of Switzerland performed the first recorded Caeasarian operation on a living woman.

Appendix 3a, Thalidomide

30 July 1973, Families of thalidomide victims won �20 million damages after an 11-year court case fought on their behalf by The Sunday Times newspaper. Babies had been born with missing or malformed limbs after their pregnant mothers took the drug for morning sickness.

16 October 1972. Protesters demanded compensation from the makers of the drug Thalidomide.

29 November 1971, The British Government announced a fund of �3 million for the victims of thalidomide.

23 March 1970, In the UK, the High Court awarded �370,000 damages to 18 children born with birth defects due to thalidomide, against Distillers (Biochemicals). Five children born with tiny �flipper� arms, the worst-disabled, received �28,000 each.

27 May 1968, The trial of the executives of the Chemie-Grunenthal company, responsible for the Thalidomide disaster that killed 80,000 babies and maimed 20,000 more, opened in Alsdorf, near Aachen. The trail was expected to last at least three years, but was shut down on 18 December 1970. All defendants were granted immunity from prosecution. The German Government and Grunenthal agreed a compensation scheme that many parents regarded as inadequate. Thalidomide was launched as a wonder cure for morning sickness on 1 October 1957; it was withdrawn on 27 November 1961. It was sold as Distaval in the UK, as Contergan in Germany. It emerged that no tests were done for effects on embryos; the executives claimed nobody in the 1950s realised that drugs taken by the mother could affect the foetus, which claim was untrue even then. Adults who took thalidomide as a sedative in 1959 had suffered serious nerve damage.

14 September 1962, Distillers Company agreed to pay �14 million to the victims of thalidomide.

1961, Thalidomide was withdrawn from sale. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA had been slow to approve it, so it was little-used there. A 1964 FDA report stated that just 17 US babies were affected. However there were clinical trials of Thalidomide in the US, and some US doctors prescribed it without waiting for FDA approval, meaning several hundred US babies were likely affected; not all victims know that their congenital malformations were due to the drug,

31 December 1958, There were fears that a drug prescribed for morning sickness, thalidomide, might be causing birth defects. Phocomelia, or �seal-limbs�, where the long bones of the leg and arms did not develop,� appeared to be on the rise. It was later discovered that thalidomide was toxic to foetuses of between 27 and 40 days after conception. Some 10,000 babies were born woth congenital malformations due to this drug.

1 October 1957, Thalidomide was first prescribed to pregnant women, as a cure for morning sickness.

AIDS

AIDS statistics, click here, https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics

3 December 1994, Elizabeth Glaser, campaigner on AIDS, died.

24 November 1991. Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock group Queen, died of AIDS, aged 45.

10 October 1992, Tens of thousands rallied in Washington, D. C., calling on the government to dedicate more funding to combating HIV/AIDS.

17 June 1991. 8,000 scientists met for an international conference on AIDS at Florence. AIDS was now in 163 countries and especially severe in Africa; the WHO estimated that over 1.5 million people had developed AIDS, with a total of 8�10 million infected. WHO expected a total of 40 million AIDS cases by 2000. In the USA, 170 had the disease, and a further 6,000 contracted it every month; in the UK 4,500 cases had been reported since 1981.

4 June 1991. The AIDS epidemic worsened in Malawi, with 37% of the population now carrying the virus.

2 May 1991. The World Health Organisation estimated that 40 million people will have the AIDS virus by 2000.

11 December 1990, The British Government announced it would award �42 million to haemophiliacs who became infected with HIV after being treated with contaminated Inhibitor Factor VIII.

8 March 1990. Over 3,000 people in the UK now had AIDS.

11 January 1990. In the UK, 1,612 have died of AIDS.

8 November 1988. In the UK, the death toll from AIDS reached 1,002, with 1,862 cases reported. A government report issued on 30 November 1988 feared that up to 50,000 in the UK could be HIV+ and that by 1992 17,000 AIDS deaths might have occurred.

5 September 1988. Britain now had 1,730 reported cases of AIDS and 949 deaths.

11 July 1988. 8,500 people in the UK were known to be carrying the AIDS virus.

13 January 1988. One in every 61 babies born in New York in December 1987 had the AIDS virus. Doctors believed up to 40% of them would develop AIDS. In the UK, there were 1,277 AIDS cases; 697 had died from the disease.

10 August 1987, One person a day was dying of AIDS in Britain.

4 May 1987, The World Health Organisation approved a Global AIDS Strategy, which by December 1987 had caused 71,751 cases of illness.

20 March 1987, The drug AZT was launched to combat AIDS.

15 February 1987. The World Health Organisation announced that a total of 38,401 AIDS cases had been reported in 85 countries. The AIDS virus had been discovered in the USA on 23 April 1984.

21 November 1986, The UK Government began an AIDS awareness advertising campaign focussed on safe sex.

16 December 1985, 8,000 Americans had now died of AIDS.

2 October 1985. Hollywood actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS, aged 59.

26 September 1985, The British Government announced �1 million funding to stop the spread of AIDS.

25 July 1985, Film star Rock Hudson was admitted to hospital suffering from AIDS.

10 May 1985. The World Health Organisation announced that AIDS cases were doubling every year in the USA and Europe. Worldwide, 11,000 AIDS cases had been reported since the virus was discovered on 23 April 1984.

11 April 1985. An 18-month old boy became the first British baby to die of AIDS.

15 March 1985, In Britain, blood donors were now to be tested for AIDS.

23 April 1984. The discovery of the AIDS virus was announced in the USA.

21 May 1983. The US made AIDS top health priority.

1 May 1983, The HIV virus that caused AIDS was identified

31 December 1981. Doctors became aware of a new disease that destroyed the immune system and appeared to be common in homosexuals. This was to be known as AIDS.

5 June 1981, The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California, had a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems. These were the first recognised cases of AIDS.

Cancer

2 August 2005, Scientists at Stanford |University, USA, announced they had used nanotechnology to destroy cancer cells.

9 May 1997, An Australian study suggested that some mice, after prolonged exposure to cell phone radiation, showed an increase in lymphoma cancer.

1981, Onco-genes (cancer genes) were discovered by US research teams. They do not directly cause cancer but become carcinogenic when affected by viruses, ionising radiation or carcinogenic chemicals.

13 April 1959, French oncologist Georges Mathe reported on his first ever attempted bone marrow transplant.

1949, Cobalt-60 was first used to treat cancer, at the Ohio State University.

1947, Sidney Farber (1903-73) founded the Children�s Cancer Research Foundation at Boston�s Children�s Hospital. He� observed that folic acid (one of the B vitamins) could increase the number of abnormal white cells in children with acute leukemia. If these children were given a drug that reduced the effects of folic acid, the abnormal cells decreased. The idea that drugs could counteract cancer, or chemotherapy, was developed from this finding.

21 September 1946. The first ant1 cancer chemotherapy trials were described/

8 January 1914, Doctors at the Middlesex Hospital successfully treated cancer with radium.

13 August 1912, In Paris, Dr Gastin Odin discovered a microbe capable of causing cancer.

1 November 1901. In Chicago, Dr J E Gilman announced an X-Ray treatment for breast cancer.

1775, Sir Percival Potts suggested that chimney sweeps in London were developing cancers of the scrotum and nasal area due to exposure to soot. This was one of the first conceptions that environmental factors could cause cancer.

Cholera

10 January 2010, Deaths from a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe now amounted to 4,293, with 98,741 cases reported.

1961, The El Tor outbreak of cholera started in Indonesia. Assisted by air travel, it reached Taiwan by 1963, and by 1964 was present in Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Egypt. By 1965 it was found in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and by1970 had reached Libya, Lebanon and Astrakhan,

29 August 1902, A cholera epidemic in Egypt killed over 9,000.

1853, An epidemic of cholera in London began. In August 1854 an outbreak of cholera in Soho was traced by physician John Snow to a conatminated public water pump in Broad Street. Sewage from a nearby tenement block where a cholera sufferer lived had contaminated the well. The pump handle was removed.

13 February 1832. Asiatic Cholera appeared for the first time in London.

21 June 1831, King William IV of England, on opening the UK Parliament, announced the arrival of a virulent strain of cholera in Europe. Starting in the Ganges area of India in 1826, cholera had spread through Iran and Turkey into south east Europe. It first hit the UK at Sunderland on 19 October 1831. Thereafter it spread rapidly in the slums of the new industrial cities, killing 3,000 in Glasgow, 700 in Leeds, 200 in York, 1,500 in Liverpool, 900 in Manchester and 6,800 in London. Britain was subsequently hit by a further cholera outbreak in 1848/9 (450 deaths in Edinburgh, 3,800 in Glasgow, 7,000 across the whole of Scotland). Cholera came again in 1853/4, starting from Tyneside, and in 1854 in London. This outbreak killed 30,000 across the UK; 10,738 in London alone. The fourth and final outbreak of cholera in Britain was in 1866, starting from Southampton; total UK fatalities amounted to 18,000.

1817, A cholera pandemic began in India and spread to east Africa and across much of SE Asia, from Japan to the Philippines.

Diabetes and Insulin

23 May 1977, Scientists reported using bacteria to make insulin.

1 November 1969, Dorothy Crowfoot (later, Hodgkin) published the 3-d structure of insulin

1865, Insulin was first synthesised.

24 July 1925. Insulin (patented 12 June 1922) was first used to successfully treat a patient, 6 year old Patricia Cheeseman, at Guy�s Hospital London.

12 June 1922, Insulin, the treatment for diabetes, was patented by Frederick Banting. See 27 July 1921 and 24 July 1925.

11 January 1922, Leonard Thompson, aged 14, became the first patient to be treated with insulin for his diabetes, at Toronto General. Hospital. He lived for another 13 years before dying of pneumonia at age 27.

27 July 1921. Insulin was isolated by Dr Frederick Banting at the University of Toronto medical School, helped by his assistant Charles Best, and tested on a de-pancreatised dog the same day. It was first used successfully on a human on 11 January 1922.

1916, The name �insuline� was first coined by English physiologist Edward A Sharpey-Schafer for the hormone produced by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas.

27 January 1899, Charles Best, Canadian co-discoverer of insulin for treating diabetes, was born in West Pembroke, Maine.

14 November 1891, Sir Frederick Banting, Canadian co-discoverer of insulin with McLeod and Best in 1922, was born in Alliston, Ontario.

1889, German physiologists J von Mering and OMinkowski removed the pancreas from a dog and noted that the animal now urinated more frequently, and its urine attracted flies and wasps. The urine was found to contain sugar, and the dog went into a diabetic coma and died.

1869, The Islets of Langerhans were discovered in the pancreas by German medical student Paul Langerhans, aged 22. These cells produce glucagon and insulin, essential for the body to regulate its sugar metabolism.

1860, French physician Etienne Lancereaux, 31, attributed diabetes to a pancreatic disorder.

25 July 1847, Physician Paul Langerhans was born in Berlin, Germany. In 1869 he discovered the small groups of cells in the pancreas now known as the islets of Langerhans. They were later discovered to be the source of insulin.

1815, Michel Chevreul, born Angers, France, 31 August 1786, showed that the sugar in the urine of diabetics was glucose; an important step in understanding the disease. See 1860.

1788, English physician Thomas Cawley noted abnormalities in the pancreas of a diabetic person n whom he was conducting an autopsy. However Cawley disregarded this observation, still believing that diabetes was a disease of the kidneys,

1683, Swiss anatomist Johann Conrad Brunner, aged 30, removed the pancreas of a dog and shwed that the animal then developed a huge thirst. This was an early indication that diabetes was due to an abnormality in the pancreas, see 1788.

11 November 1675, Death of Thomas Willis, physician to King Charles II and to the Duke of York. He was the first to notice an increase in what we now know as diabetes amongst his more affluent clients � he called it �the pissing evil�. He also noted the very sweet nature of this urine. The wealthy in England were raising their consumption of sugar, now being imported from the Caribbean, both in desserts and in tea. In fact the issue of sweet urine and diabetes was also known to the ancient Greeks, Indians and Chinese.

643, Death of the Chinese physician Chen Ch�uan. He was the first to describe the symptoms of diabetes, including thirst and sweet urine.

Ebola

15 May 2019, The number of Ebola cases in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo now exceeded 1,600 since the current outbreak began in August 2018. In April 2018 the rate of new cases suddenly accelerated from around 30 to around 100 per week,

29 December 2015, For the first time since March 2014, Guinea was declared free from Ebola virus transmissions by the World Health Organization.

26 July 2015, Ebola continued in Guinea and Sierra Leone, albeit at much lower levels than the peak of the late-2014 outbreak. The Lancet reported on a vaccine with a 1005 success rate, as total cases from February 2014 now stood at: Guinea, 3,786 cases, 2,520 deaths; Liberia, 10,672 cases, 4,808 deaths; Sierra Leone, 13,290 cases, 3,951 deaths. There had also been 1 case in Italy, 8 cases and 6 deaths in Mali, 20 cases and 8 deaths in Nigeria, 1 case in Senegal, 1 case in Spain, 1 case in the UK, and 4 cases, 1 death in the USA.

21 January 2015, Confirmed Ebola cases in Guinea reached 2,806 cases with 1,814 deaths. In Liberia cases eached 8,331 cases with 3,538 deaths. In Sierra Leone cases reached 10,124, with 3,062 deaths.

9 January 2015, Confirmed Ebola cases in Sierra Leone reached 7,718, with early 3,000 deaths. However the epidemic seemed to be abating, with many areas free of new cases for over a month.

22 October 2014, Total Ebola cases now stood at 9,936, with 4,877 deaths. Mali reported its first case.

18 October 2014, The total Ebola toll was as follows. Guinea, 1,519 cases, 7788 deaths. Liberia, 4,076 cases, 2,316 deaths. Nigeria, 20 cases, 8 deaths. Senegal, 1 case, 0 deaths. Sierra Leone, 3,410 cases, 1,200 deaths. Overall total, 9,191 cases, 4,546 deaths.

11 October 2014, The number of Ebola deaths in West Africa passed 4,000.

26 September 2014, The total Ebola toll was as follows. Democratic Republic of Congo, 70 cases, 42 deaths. Guinea, 1,074 cases, 648 deaths. Liberia, 3,458 cases, 1,830 deaths. Nigeria, 20 cases, 8 deaths. Senegal, 1 case, 0 deaths. Sierra Leone, 2,021 cases, 605 deaths.

20 September 2014, The total Ebola toll was as follows. Guinea, 1,008 cases, 632 deaths. Liberia, 3,022 cases, 1,578 deaths. Nigeria, 20 cases, 8 deaths. Senegal, 1 case, 0 deaths. Sierra Leone, 1,813 cases, 593 deaths.

31 July 2014, The number of fatalities in the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia passed 1,200; cases were also reported in Nigeria.

18 February 1996. The World Health Organisation sent experts to Gabon where ten people had died of the Ebola virus.

16 May 1995, An Ebola outbreak in Zaire had now killed 77. The disease kills victims so fast they have little time to pass it on, so does not cause major pandemics.

Influenza and other respiratory (click here for Covid-19)

10 August 2010, The World Health Organisation declared the H1N1 influenza pandemic officially over.

11 June 2009, The influenza strain H1N1 sparked fears of a global flu pandemic.

28 April 2009, The Mexican Government confirmed an outbreak of Swine Flu in humans.

5 April 2006, Avian flu was confirmed to have reached Britain when a mute swan was found dead of the highly pathogenic H5 strain near St Andrews, Scotland. A 1,000 square mile exclusion zone was imposed, with poultry farmers told to keep their flocks indoors at all times.

30 September 2005, The UN issued warnings that a pandemic of Avian Flu might be imminent, and kill between 5 and 150 million people.

SARS, 2003-03

7/2003, The SARS epidemic was declared over by the WHO. Some 8,000 people had been infected across 27 countries, and 774 had died.

5 July 2003, The WHO declared SARS to be �contained�

23 April 2003, Beijing closed all schools for 2 weeks due to the SARS outbreak.

15 March 2003, The WHO declared SARS a global health emergency. The virus was believed to have originated in China�s Guangdong Province.

13 March 2003, The first case of SARS was reported, in Hanoi, Vietnam. The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus killed 813 and affected 8,400 people. In Canada there were 251 cases and 41 deaths. In China there were 5,327 cases and 349 deaths. In Hong Kong there were 1,755 cases and 300 deaths. In Taiwan there were 665 cases and 180 deaths.

16 November 2002, A Chinese farmer was admitted to hospital in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China with severe atypical pneumonia. This new disease was later known as SARS, a novel strain of coronavirus. The virus became known to the outside world when a US businessman who had visited Guangdong Province became ill on a return flight from China; he was transferred to a hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he later died, as did several nurses and doctors at this hospital.

29 December 1997, The Hong Kong Government ordered a mass slaughterof its entire chicken population, to prevent the spread of avian flu to humans. The virus had already caused severe illness in 18 people, of whom 6 had died. 1.2 milliomn chockens were killed, as well as large numbers of ducks, geese, quail and other poultry. Farmers and vendors were compensated.

9 January 1970, In Britain, Hong Kong Flu claimed 2,850 lives in a week.

Spanish Flu, 1918-21

7/1921, The last new� cases of Spanish Flu were being reported in New Caledonia.

1920, The Spanish Flu pandemic had killed 50 - 100 million people. In the developed world, mortality was about 2%; in Britain, 250,000 died, mostly aged between 20 and 40. Deaths in other countries included, Bulgaria 51,000, France 238,000, Germany 427,000, Italy 544,000, Portugal 136,000, Spain 252,000. However in India, where 18.5 million died, it was 6%, and in Egypt, where 138,000 died, mortality was 10%. Death rates tended to be higher in populations which had been less exposed to the flu virus previously.

26 October 1918. In London alone, in the past week, Spanish flu claimed 2,225 lives.

21 October 1918. The Spanish Flu epidemic began in Britain. 150,000 died of this disease in the last quarter of 1918. It killed twice as many as died in World War One.

4 March 1918, The first recorded case of Spanish flu, in a US soldier at Cape Funston, a military base in Kansas.

17 February 1900, The influenza epidemic in Britain ended.

9 January 1900, The influenza epidemic in London was killing 50 people a day.

Malaria

2016, There were 216 million malaria cases worldwide, 80% of them in India and 14 sub-Saharan countries. 445,000 people died of malaria.

31 December 2014, During 2014, malaria killed 627,000 worldwide, 77% of these being children under 5. In 2014 there were 207 million new cases of malaria, and Africa lost an estimated US$ 12 million productivity due to the disease.

1977, The number of malaria cases in India stood at 10 million, up from 100,000 in 1965. The emergence of resistant strains of the disease was to blame.

10 April 1944, The anti-malarial drug quinine was discovered by Robert Edward and William van Eggers.

10 December 1902. Major Ronald Ross of the British army won the Nobel Prize for medicine because of his work relating malaria to mosquitoes.

8 July 1898, Ronald Ross traced the malaria parasite to the salivary glands of mosquitoes.

20 August 1897, Sir Ronald Ross discovered that malaria was spread by mosquitoes.

Measles

6 December 2019, A surge in measles cases worldwide was reported, with 10 million cases and 142,000 deaths occurring in 2018. Survivors often die soon after because their immune system has been compromised. Anti-vacination sympathies have been blamed for the increase, with cases in 2019 trending towards three times that for 2018.

27 September 2017, The World Health Organisation declared that measles had been �eliminated� from the UK, Spain and Denmark for the frst time ever; these countries had been free of the disease for 36 months. 33 of the 53 countries in Europe wree now measles-free. However doctors in the UK were still treating 1,000 cases from overseas. Over 95% of British children had been vaccinated with the MMR jab, despite publicity against it.� In 1961 there were 764,000 measles cases in Britain, resulting in 152 deaths.

1963, First vaccine for measles was licenced.

1954, The measles virus was first isolated.

10 September 1624, Physician Thomas Sydenham was born in England. He was the first to describe measles and identify scarlet fever. He advocated the use of opium to alleviate pain, chinchona bark (quinine) to relieve malaria, and iron to treat anaemia.

Mental illness

20 February 1996, Solomon Asch, psychologist, died.

29 December 1987, Prozac made its debut in the USA. It was initially developed as a drug to treat high blood pressure, but the success seen in animals in this area failed to materialise with humans. However it found a role as an anti-depressant. Before Prozac and other drugs, depression, sometimes romantically referred to as �melancholy�, could lead to committal to a mental institution in the most severe cases, so sufferers were reluctant to seek treatment. Prozac boosts the level of serotonin in the brain by preventing its destruction after it has delivered its message; it is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor or SSRI. Although some patients have alleged that it changes personality, even leading to suicide attempts, some 35 million people (2006) take it worldwide.

5 May 1986, The Tau protein was identified as the major component of neurofibrillary tangles associated with Alzheimer�s Disease.

4 November 1906, Alois Alzheimer produced a public report on the brain of a dead dementia patient.

8 April 1906, D Auguste, the first recorded Alzheimer's victim, died (born 1850)

13 November 1962. UK doctors estimated that 40,000 Britons were taking pep pills.

12 November 1953, The Samaritans Helpline was set up by Reverend Chad Varah, at St Stephens Church, Walbrook, London.

6 May 1946, LIFE Magazine published "Bedlam 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals are a Shame and a Disgrace" in its May 6, 1946, issue. Albert Q. Maisel's expos� of the atrocities at two mental institutions, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which he described as "concentration camps masquerading as hospitals", spurred reforms in psychiatric care.

3 June 1944, Hans Asperger described a form of autism that would later become known as Asperger�s Syndrome.

28 March 1938, Psychiatrists Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini used electric shock treatment on a patient for the first time.

The subject was a man found wandering in a railway station and mumbling to himself.

1937, Italian doctors Ugo Cerlutti and Lucio Bini developed the use of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) to treat schizophrenia.

12 November 1935, Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz performed the first lobotomy.������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

1921, Swiss psychiatrist Hetrmann Rorsach perfected his Inkblot Test.

1916, F W Mott developed a theory of shell-shock.

20 March 1904, BF Skinner, psychologist, was born.

1911, Bleuler in Switzerland coined the term �schizophrenia�.

1910, The medical technical term �moron� was first used, denoting an adult with a mental age of between 8 and 12. Already by the 1920s it had become a common insult and is no longer in use as a medical term.

17 September 1910, A London doctor stated that if lunacy kept increasing at the current rate, the sane would be outnumbered by the insane within 40 years.

27 April 1908, The First International Congress of Psychoanalysis opened in Salzburg.

18 February 1906, Hans Asperger, Austrian pediatrician and eponym of Asperger syndrome, was born in Vienna (died 1980)

1 January 1906, In Britain the Lunacy Commission reported that on this date 121,979 persons were certified as insane.

27 January 1903, John Carew Eccles, neuropsychologist, was born.

1894, Intelligence Tests were devided by French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857 � 1911).

11 July 1857, Alfred Binet, psychologist who invented the IQ test, was born.

6 January 1938. Sigmund Freud arrived in London, fleeing Nazi persecution.

4 November 1899, Sigmund Freud�s book, The Interpretation of Dreams, was published in Switzerland. Although only 600 copies of the book were initially printed, it took 8 years to sell them all.

3 December 1895, Anna Freud, psychoanalyst, was born.

1890, In Britain the Lunacy Act compelled local authorities to provide asylum accommodation for all those who, through mental incapacity, could not provide for themselves and who had no relatives to care for them.

1878, German psychologist Wilhelm Max Wundt, aged 46, established the first laboratory for experimental psychology, bringing scientific methods to the study of the human mind.

29 November 1874, Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz was born in Avanca, Portugal. In 1935 he developed prefrontal lobotomy as a treatment for mental illness.

15 February 1856. Birth of Emil Kraepelin, pyschiatrist who differentiated schizophrenia and ,manic-depressive illness.

15 January 1842, Josef Breuer, psychologist, was born.

18 December 1839, Theodule Ribot, French psychologist, was born in Guingamp.

3 February 1772, Jean Esquirol, French psychiatrist, was born (died 13 December 1840. In 1817 he began a series of lectures on the treatment of the insane in French asylums, exposing such mistreatment� that the Government appointed a commission to investigate.

24 March 1732, William Tuke, who pioneered the humane treatment of the insane, was born in York (died 1822). In 1792 he promoted the Retreat at York, run by the Society of Friends, whose success led to UK legislation on the treatment of the insane.

Polio

8/2020, Africa was declared free of polio.Nigeria was the last African country where the disease was present..The disease was present in nature now only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

1957, Cases of polio in Britain had fallen this year to 6,000, from 58,000 in 1952, due to the Salk vaccine.

12 April 1955, The Salk polio vaccine was pronounced safe.

23 February 1954, In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, the first mass inoculation of children against polio began, using the Salk vaccine.

23 February 1954, In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, the first mass inoculation of children against polio began, using the Salk vaccine.

11 November 1953. The polio virus was identified.

26 March 1953. The Salk vaccine proved effective against polio.

1927, The �Iron Lung�, or Drinker Respirator, was invented by Harvard Professor Philip Drinker. It was intended for child victims of respiratory faulire due to acute poliomyelitis.

28 October 1914. Jonas Salk, US bacteriologist� who discovered the anti-poliomyelitis vaccine, was born in New York City, to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents.

Smallpox

8 May 1980. The World Health Organisation declared that smallpox had been eradicated.

11 September 1978. The world�s last smallpox victim died. She was a medical school photographer in Birmingham, and had caught the virus on 30 August 1979 after it escaped from a laboratory located on the floor below her workplace. The Head of Department responsible for this laboratory later committed suicide by cutting his throat.

13 November 1976, The World Health Organisation declared Asia was free of smallpox for the first time in history.

21 January 1962 . Smallpox was also a threat as an epidemic hit Britain and other countries insisted visitors from the UK were vaccinated.

19 February 1902. France made smallpox vaccinations compulsory.

31 January 1902, The number of smallpox victims in London rose to 2,273.

21 January 1799. Edward Jenner introduced the smallpox vaccination. In the 18th century, smallpox took over from the bubonic plague as the major killer disease. Edward Jenner worked as a doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. By observing local milkmaids, Jenner tested the generally held belief that cowpox sufferers were immune to smallpox. In 1796 he experimented by scraping pus from a cowpox sore on the arm of a milkmaid and inserting it into two cuts on the arm of a young boy. On 1 July 1796 he did the same with pus from a smallpox sore. The boy caught cowpox but not smallpox. After doing this to 23 other people, Jenner called this method �vaccination�, meaning �from a cow�. Jenner published his findings in 1798 and despite scepticism from doctors, vaccination became widely accepted. Even members of the Royal Family were vaccinated. Vaccination became free for all infants in 1840 and compulsory in Britain in 1853. In 1980 the World Health Organisation declared smallpox had been eradicated throughout the world.

14 May 1796. Dr Edward Jenner, born 17 May 1749, from Berkeley, Gloucestershire, carried out his first human vaccination. He infected an eight year old, James Phipps, with cowpox, or �vaccinia� disease, having once heard a dairymaid claim that she would never catch smallpox because she had been infected by cowpox. Then on July 1^st he deliberately exposed the boy to smallpox; he proved resistant to the disease.

17 May 1749, Edward Jenner, pioneer of vaccination, was born at Berkeley vicarage, Gloucestershire.

13 February 1713, Dutch sailors inadvertently introduced smallpox to the indigenous Khoisan people of South Africa. The mortality rate was 90%.

Syphilis

26 February 1971. Hammersmith Borough Council launched a lurid and aggressive campaign against the spread of venereal diseases such as syphilis.

20 August 1915, Paul Erlich, bacteriologist, dies of a stroke in Bad Homburg, Germany. Born in Strehlen, in 1909 he developed the first compound designed specifically to cure a disease; Salvarsan, for syphilis.

22 October 1910, Paul Erlich announced his cure for syphilis, Salvarsan.

1909, The antibiotic Salvarsan (compound 606) �was discovered bythe German, Paul Ehrlich. It was very effective against syphilis.

1546, The first description of syphilis was made by Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro in his work, De contagion et contagiosis morbis.

1502, Syphilis first appeared in China, brought to the port of Canton by European traders.

Tuberculosis

23 April 1993. The World Health Organisation declared tuberculosis a global emergency, saying TB could kill 30 million people by 2003.

22 February 1946, Dr Selman Abrahams announced the discovery of streptomycin, an antibiotic for treating tuberculosis.

27 May 1910, Robert Koch, German bacteriologist and Nobel Prize Winner who discovered the tuberculosis bacillus, died.

1907, C Pirquet developed a method of diagnoising tuberculosis;

1894, The first British sanatorium for the open-air treatment of tuberculosis opened in Edinburgh. Others soon followed in Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Frimley (Surrey). The notion that open clean air could assist in the treatment of tuberculosis had been popular since the late 1800s; the wealthy would take the train to the Alps of the south of France. Wealthy philanthropists funded the British sanatoria, although because tuberculosis was considered a disease of the poor, it attracted less funding than cancer.

24 March 1882, In Berlin, Dr |Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tuberculosis bacterium. He received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.

Appemdix a � National Health Service (UK)

27 July 2000. Tony Blair�s government unveiled its national plan for the Health Service, with a ten-year package of sweeping reforms and restructuring. The days of dirty wards, inedible food, and entertainment restricted to volunteer-staffed radio stations were over, according to the proposals.

29 January 1988. Junior Health Minister (Conservative), Edwina Curry, told people they should forego holidays to pay for private health care.

10 June 1968, NHS prescription charges were reintroduced. See 1 February 1965.

1 February 1965, In the UK, NHS prescription charges were removed. They were re-introduced on 10 June 1968, see Price; 16 January 1968.

6 July 1960. Aneurin Bevan, founder of the National Health Service in 1948, Minister of Health 1945-51, died.� He was born on 15 November 1897.

7 June 1960, The first NHS hearing aids were issued.

23 April 1951. The Labour Health Minister Nye Bevan and two other ministers resign over the introduction of charges for NHS glasses and false teeth. The charges were imposed to pay for defence costs.

6 October 1949, Aneurin Bevan gave some figures for the demand on Britain�s new NHS since its inception on 5 July 1948. 187,000,000 prescriptions had been dispensed at a cost of 2s 9d (14p) each; 5,250,000 pairs of glasses had been given out, with another 3,000,000 on order; 8,500,000 dental patients had been treated. The Government Actuary, Sir George Epps, had estimated that the cost of the NHS in its first year would be �170 million; the actual figure turned out to be �242 million. Annual costs were expected to fall as the population grew fitter; in fact annual costs rose to �384 million in 1952/3.

5 July 1948. The National Health Service was established in the UK. Introduced under a Labour government, it provided free medical treatment, and free prescriptions for glasses, teeth, and wigs. In its first year the NHS cared for 47.5 million patients, provided 5.25 million pairs of glasses, 7,000 artificial eyes and 5,000 wigs. Doctors wrote 187 million NHS prescriptions, and by 1950, 95% of UK citizens were using the NHS.

7 June 1948, Over half of UK doctors agreed to join the NHS.

18 February 1948. In a poll by the British Medical Association, 86% of doctors voted against joining the NHS.

27 January 1948, UK medical consultants threatened to boycott the new National Health Service.

21 March 1946. Aneurin Bevan announced Labour Government plans for a National Health Service.to become operational in 1948. The cost per year was expected to be around �152 million (�5,000 million in 2015 prices; actual 2015 NHS spending is more like �115,000 million).

17 February 1944, In the UK, the White Paper on the National Health Service was published.

4 May 1910. Lloyd George introduced a National Health Insurance Bill.

Appendix c � Anaesthitics,

13 February 1906, The US Patent Office registered the local anaesthetic procaine for Alfred Einhorn.

1905, Procaine, commercial name Novocaine, became the first synthetic local anaesthetic.

7 April 1853, Queen Victoria used chloroform to help her through the birth of her seventh child, Prince Leopold. This established chloroform as the favoured anaesthetic in Britain.

9 November 1847, Obstetrician Sir James Simpson, Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh demonstrated a new anaesthetic, trichloromethane, better known as chloroform. Claimed to be three times as effective as ether, it was to be of great use during difficult childbirths; however Scottish Calvinists opposed the use of any anaesthetic during childbirth.

21 December 1846. Anaesthetic was used in a British hospital for the first time (see 16 October 1846).It was used by surgeon Robert Liston during a leg amputation at University College Hospital, London.

16 October 1846. Anaesthetic was used successfully for the first time in a major operation, at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dentist William Morton Warren used diethyl ether before removing a tumour from a man�s jaw.

30 March 1842. The first anaesthetic, ether, was used in an operation, in Jefferson, Georgia, USA. The surgeon was Dr Crawford Long. He removed a cyst from the neck of a Mr James Venables. The bill for the anaesthesia was US$ 2.25. Dr Long performed 9 successful operations with ether, including the amputation of a boy�s finger, but was accused of sorcery by the older citizens of Jefferson and threatened with lynching if he continued.

1830, Chloroform was discovered as an anaesthetic� independently by Justus von Liebig and by US chemist Samuel Guthrie.

1 November 1815, Crawford Williamson Long, surgeon, was born in Danielsville, Georgia, USA. He is credited with the first use of ether as an anaesthetic, on 30 March 1842.

27 October 1794, Birth of Robert Lister, Scottish doctor who performed the first operation using anaesthetic.

1500 BCE, Opium poppies were being used to induce a form of anaesthesia in the Middle East.

1236, Dominican Friar Theodoric of Lucca pioneered a form of anaesthetic. He advocated the use of sponges soaked in narcotic and held to the patient�s nose; he favoured the use of opium and mandragora.

Famous medical people

7 October 2005, Michael Ward, doctor, died (born 6 March 1925)

28 July 2004, Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, died aged 88.

16 October 1982, Hans Hugo Selye, Austrian endocrinologist who pioneered studies on stress, died.

5 August 1982, John Charnley, British orthopaedic surgeon, died aged 70.

7 March 1982, Margulies Lazar, US physician, died.

4 August 1977, Edgar Douglas Baron, English physiologist, died in London.

3 June 1977, Archibald Vivian Hill, English physiologist, died in Cambroidge.

1 February 1976, Gene Hoyt Whipple, US physician, died in Rochester, New York, USA.

8 December 1970, Philip Edward Smith, endocrinologist, died in Florence, Massachusetts.

21 February 1968, Lord Florey, Australian-born British pathologist who made possible the large-scale production of penicillin, died.

11 June 1967, Wolfgang Kohler, Russian-German-US psychologist, died in Enfield, New Hampshire, USA.

24 April 1964, Gerhard Domagk, German pathologist (born 30 October 1895 in Brandenburg) died in Burgberg.

6 June 1961, Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychologist and associate of Freud, died aged 85.

6 May 1958, Olivier H�l�non, French radiologist, was born

16 August 1955, James Reilly: Irish surgeon, was born.

11 March 1955, Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin in 1928 and Nobel prize-winner in 1945, died.

25 February 1950, George Richards Minot, US physician, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts.

5 October 1949, Major Greenwood (born 9 August 1880) English epidemiologist and medical statistician, died.

9 July 1943, Clifford Beers, US mental hygiene pioneer, died aged 67.

2 March 1943, Alexandre Yersin, physician, died.

21 February 1941, Sir Frederick Banting, Canadian scientist who along with Charles Best discovered insulin in 1921, was killed in an air crash.

15 July 1940, Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist who introduced the term schizophrenia to describe the disorder previously known as dementia praecox, died aged 82.

23 September 1939. Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist, born 6 May 1856, died in Hampstead aged 83.� He had moved to London in 1938 following Hitler�s annexation of Austria.

16 November 1935, Sir Magdi Yacoub, cardiothoracic surgeon, was born.

23 September 1933, Lloyd Old, US immunologist, was born.

9 July 1933, Oliver Sacks, neurologist, was born.

31 December 1932, Mildred Scheel, German doctor, was born.

16 September 1932, Sir Ronald Ross, English physician, died in London.

3 December 1935, Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist, died in Paris.

2 May 1927, Ernest Henry Starling, English physiologist, died at sea near Kingston, Jamaica.

27 February 1926, David H Hubel, neuroscientist, was born.

6 March 1925, Michael Ward, doctor, was born (died 7 October 2005)

11 February 1924, Jacques Loeb, German-US physiologist, died in Hamilton, Bermuda.

10 February 1923. William Konrad Von Roentgen, German physicist who discovered X rays in 1895, died.

9 April 1922, Patrick Manson, Scottish physician, died aged 77

23 January 1921, Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldemeyer-Hartz, German anatomist, died in Berlin.

29 December 1919, Sir William Osler, medical teacher, died in Oxford, England.

27 July 1917, Surgeon Emil Theodor Kocher died.

10 February 1912. Charles Lister. Lord Joseph Lister, surgeon and discoverer of antiseptics, died aged 84 at Walmer, Kent.

26 August 1910, William James, US psychologist, was born in Chocorua, new Hampshire.

13 August 1910. Florence Nightingale, born 12 May 1820, died in London aged 90.

31 January 1908, Karl von Voit, physiologist, was born in Munich, Germany.

21 May 1907, Sir Joseph Fayrer, English physician, died (born 6 December 1824)

18 April 1904, Sir Henry Thompson, English surgeon, died (born 6 August 1820 in Framlingham, Suffolk)

14 June 1903, Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist, died in Heidelberg.

23 November 1902, Walter Reed, US military surgeon, died in Washington DC.

2 November 1902, Rudolf Albert von Kolliker, Swiss anatomist and physiologist, died in Wurzburg, Bavaria.

5 September 1902, Rudolf Carl Virchow, German pathologist, died in Berlin.

4 December 1901, Sir William MacCormick, Irish surgeon, died (born 17 January 1836).

11 December 1898, Sir William Jenner, English physician, died (born 30 January 1815).

13 March 1898, Sir Richard Quain, Irish physician, died in London (born 30 October 1816 in County Cork)

28 September 1895, French chemist Louis Pasteur died (see 6 July 1885). He had been born in Dole, France, on 27 December 1822.

23 April 1895, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig, German physiologist, died in Leipzig, Saxony.

4 March 1895, Sir William Savory, British surgeon, died in London (born 30 November 1829 in London)

6 February 1894, Albert Billroth, surgeon, died (born in Rugen 26 April 1829).

16 August 1893, Jean Charcot, French physician, died (born 29 November 1825).

22 March 1892, David Agnew, US surgeon died (born 24 November 1818).

3 February 1892, Sir Morell MacKenzie, British physician, died (born 7 July 1837).

19 July 1891, Sir Prescott Hewett, British surgeon, died (born 3 July 1812)

29 January 1890, Sir William Gull, English physician, died (born 31 December 1816).

30 November 1889, Edgar Adrian, English physiologist, was born. He studied the neurons of the nervous system.

24 March 1889, Franciscus Cornelia Donders, Dutch physiologist, died in Utrecht.

22 July 1888, Selman Abraham Waksman, Russian microbiologist whose search for antimicrobial substances in soil led to the discovery of actinomycin and streptomycin, was born.

23 June 1888, Edmund Gurney, English psychologist, died (born 23 March 1847).

30 September 1887, Bernhard Langenbeck, German surgeon, died (born 9 November 1810).

17 July 1887, Dorothy Lynde Dix, pioneer in the humane treatment of the mentally disabled in the US (born 4 April 1802 in Hampden, Maine), died in Trenton, New Jersey.

21 January 1887, Wolfgang Kohler, psychologist, was born in Revel, Estonia. He was one of the founders of the gestalt school.

11 November 1886, Paul Bert, French physiologist, died in Hanoi (born in Auxerre 17 October 1833).

13 March 1886, Austin Flint, heart research pioneer, died (born 20 October 1812)

2 March 1886, John Forster, British surgeon, died (born 1823).

21 September 1884, Charles Joules Henri Nicolle was born in Rouen, France. In 1909 he discovered that typhus was spread via the body louse.

20 July 1884, Caesar Hawkins, British surgeon, died (born 19 November 1798)

24 August 1882, Charles Morehead, Scottish physician, died (born 8 February 1807)

23 January 1882, Sir Robert Christison, Scottish physician, died (born 18 July 1797).

9 July 1880, Paul Broca, French surgeon and anthropologist, died (born 28 June 1824).

5 October 1879, Francis Peyton Rous was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1910 he discovered that some animal cancers were caused by viruses.

26 January 1878, Ernst Heinrich, German physiologist, died in Leipzig, Saxony,

25 September 1877, Carl Reinhold Wunderlich, German physician, died in Leipzig, Saxony.

10 February 1877, Sir William Fergusson, British surgeon, died (born 20 March 1808).

17 September 1875, Guillaume Duchenne, French physician, died (born 17.9/1806).

26 July 1875, Carl Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst, was born in Kesswil.

2 March 1874, Neil Arnott, Scottish physician (born 15 May 1788) died.

20 April 1873, Henry Bence-Jones, English physician, died in London (born in Suffolk, 1814).

19 October 1871, Physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon was born in Prarie du Chien, Wisconsin. He devised the use of bismuth compounds to make soft organs visible on X-rays.

6 May 1870, Sir James Young Simpson, Scottish physician, died in Edinburgh (born 7 June 181 in Bathgate)

7 February 1870, Birth of Alfred Adler, the psychoanalyst who introduced the concept of the inferiority complex.

9 October 1869, Otto Erdmann, physician who introduced vaccination into Saxony, died (born 11 April 1804).

28 July 1869, Karl Carus, German physician, died (born 1789)

8 April 1869, Harvey Cushing, US surgeon, was born.

28 August 1868, Antoine Clot, French physician, died (born 7 November 1793).

29 July 1868, John Elliotson, English physician, died (born 29 October 1791).

15 July 1868, William Thomas Morton, US dentist, died in New York City, New York.

8 December 1867, Jean Pierre Flourens, French physiologist, died.

6 March 1867, John Goodsir, Scottish anatomist, died (born 20 March 1814).

21 February 1866, August von Wasserman, German bacteriologist who invented a test for syphilis, was born.

6 November 1865, William Leishman was born in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1900 he discovered that the disease now known as Leishmaniasis is spread by a parasite of sandflies.

17 August 1865, Ignatz Philipp Semmelweiss, Hungarian physician, died (born 1 July 1818 in Vienna)

21 October 1862, Sir Benjamin Brodie, English surgeon, died (born 1783)

10 December 1861, Thomas Southwood Smith, English physician, died in Florence, Italy (born 21 December 1788 in Martock, Somerset)

15 December 1860, Physician Neils Finsen was born in the Faroe Islands.

12 June 1859, Jacob Bell, pharmaceutical chemist, died (born in London 5 March 1810).

16 December 1858, Physician Richard Bright died in London, England.

14 August 1858, George Combe, Scottish phrenologist, died (born 21 October 1788).

28 April 1858, Johannes Muller, German anatomist, died.

7 March 1857, Julius Wagner von Jauregg was born in Wels, Austria. In 1927 he was awarded the Nobel prize for his treatment of some forms of paralysis using malaria inoculation to induce the fever.

6 May 1856, Sigmund Freud, Austrian pioneer of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiburg, Moravia.

15 March 1854, Emil von Behring, bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1901 for his work on immunisation aganist diphtheria, was born.

14 March 1854, Paul Erlich, bacteriologist, was born in Strehlen, Silesia (now Poland); died 20 August 1915.

13 September 1853, Bacteriologist Hans Christian Joachim Gram was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1884 he developed a dye that could distinguish between two classes of bacteria, those that took up the dye and those that didn�t. The groups react differently to antibiotics.

23 September 1852, Surgeon William Halstead was born in New York City. In 1890 he introduced the practice of wearing sterilised rubber gloves during surgery.

12 March 1851, Bacteriologist Charles Chamberland was born in Chilly le Vignoble, France. He improved sterilisation techniques and invented filters to trap bacteria, which led to the discovery of viruses.

2 June 1850, Jesse Boot, British pharmacist, was born in Nottingham.

26 September 1849, Ivan Pavlov, son of a village priest, was born this day near Ryazan, Russia. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his discovery of conditioned reflexes.

23 December 1848, James Cowles Prichard, English physician, died in London (born 11 February 1786 in Ross, Herefordshire)

22 June 1848, Sir William Macewen, surgeon, was born.

7 December 1847, Robert Liston, surgeon, died (born 28 October 1794)

9 August 1847, Andrew Combe, physiologist, died (born 27 October 1797).

23 March 1847, Edmund Gurney, English psychologist, was born (died 23 June 1888).

27 October 1845, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, French physician, died in Paris (born 22 February 1785)

14 November 1844, John Abercrombie, Scottish physician (born 10 October 1780) died in Edinburgh.

11 December 1843, Robert Koch, German bacteriologist, was born in Klausthal.

21 August 1843, William Pepper, US physician, was born in Philadelphia (died 28 July 1898 in Pleasanton, California).

2 July 1843, The originator of homeopathic medicine, Samuel Hahneman, died in Paris aged 88 (born 10 April 1755). He believed that diseases could be cured by drugs producing similar symptoms, only in much smaller doses than normal; the �law of similars�.

28 April 1842, Sir Charles Bell, anatomist, died near Worcester (born in Edinburgh 11/1774).

12 February 1841, Sir Astley Cooper, English surgeon, died in London (born 23 August 1768 in Norfolk).

13 December 1840, Jean Esquirol, French psychiatrist, died (born 3 February 1772).. In 1817 he began a series of lectures on the treatment of the insane in French asylums, exposing such mistreatment� that the Government appointed a commission to investigate.

17 November 1838, Francois Broussart, French physician, died (born 17 December 1772).

7 July 1837, Sir Morell MacKdnzie, British physician, was born (died 3 February 1892).

28 March 1837, Willy Kuhne, German physiologiat,was born (died 10 June 1900).

25 August 1836, Christoph Hufeland, German physician,died (born 12 August 1762).

20 July 1836, Physician Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt was born in Dewsbury, England. In 1866 he developed the clinical thermometer; previously thermometers in medicine took some 20 minutes to determine the patient�s temperature.

8 March 1836, Sir Michael Foster, English physiologist, was born (died 29 January 1907).

17 January 1836, Sir William MacCormick, Irish surgeon, was born (died 4 December 1901).

17 October 1835, Paul Bert, French physiologist, was born in Auxerre (died in Hanoi 11 November 1886).

8 February 1835, Guillaume Dupuytren, French surgeon, died (born 6 October 1777).

26 June 1834, Sir Gilbert Blane, Scottish physician, died in London (born 29 August 1749).

20 April 1831, John Abernethy, British surgeon (born 3 April 1764 in London) died in Enfield.

30 November 1829, Sir William Savory, British surgeon, was born in London (died 4 March 1895 in London)

26 April 1829, Albert Billroth, surgeon, was born in Rugen (died 6 February 1894).

21 December 1828, Sir John Burdon-Sanderson, physiologist, was born (died 23 November 1905).

1 November 1828, Balfour Stewart, Scottish physician, was born (died 19 December 1887).

23 July 1828, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, English surgeon, was born.

22 May 1828, Albrecht von Grafe, eye specialist, was born (died 20 July 1870)

5 April 1827, Joseph Lister was born in London. He was a surgeon, and pioneered the use of antiseptics.

28 October 1826, Sir Andrew Clark, British physician, was born (died 6 November 1893).

26 October 1826, Philippe Pinel, French physician, died in Paris (born 20 April 1745 in Tarn Department)

13 August 1826, Rene Lannec, French doctor who invented and named the stethoscope in 1819, died.

29 November 1825, Jean Charcot, French physician, was born (died 16 August 1893).

6 December 1824, Sir Joseph Fayrer, English physician, was born (died 21 May 1907).

28 June 1824, Paul Broca, French surgeon and anthropologist, was born (died 9 July 1880).

26 January 1823, Edward Jenner, pioneer of vaccination, died in Berkeley, Gloucestershire..

27 December 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France.

10 May 1822, Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, instructor of deaf-mutes, died in Paris (born 20 September 1742 in Haute-Garonne)

12 May 1820. Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy; she was named after the city. She had a privileged education but shocked her family by turning down several marriage proposals to pursue a career in nursing. In 1854 she nursed soldiers in the Crimean War and resolved to improve the appalling medical conditions there.

15 April 1820, John Bell, Scottish surgeon, died in Rome (born in Edinburgh 12 May 1763).

24 November 1818, David Agnew, US surgeon (died 22 March 1892) was born.

11 September 1818, John Marshall, English surgeon, was born (died 1 January 1891).

19 July 1818, Sir John Erichsen, British surgeon, was born (died 23 September 1896).

31 December 1816, Sir William Gull, English physician, was born (died 29 January 1890).

29 December 1816, Karl Freidrich Wilhelm Ludwig was born in Witzenhausen, Germany. In 1847 he demonstrated that the blood circulation is purely mechanical, due to heart pumping action.

23 August 1815, Sir Henry Acland, English physician, was born (died16 October 1900)

10 October 1816, Sir John Simon, English physician, was born in London (died 23 July 1904)

4 August 1815, Physician Carl Reinhold Wunderlich was born in Sulz, Germany. He was the first to realise the usefulness of taking accurate readings of a patient�s temperature.

30 January 1815, Sir William Jenner, English physician,was born (died 11 December 1898).

11 January 1814, Sir James Paget, British surgeon, was born in Yarmouth (died 30 December 1899 in London)

19 April 1813, Physician Benjamin Rush died in Philadelphia, USA.

15 March 1813, Dr John Snow, pioneer bacteriologist, was born.

20 October 1812, Austin Flint, heart research pioneer, was born.

31 August 1812, John Bennett, English physician, was born in London (died 1875).

3 July 1812, Sir Prescott Hewett, British surgeon, was born (died 19 July 1891)

9 November 1810, Bernhard Langenbeck, German surgeon, was born (died 30 September 1887).

5 March 1810, Jacob Bell, pharmaceutical chemist, was born in London (died 12 June 1859).

9 July 1809, Friedrich Henle, German anatomist, was born (died 13 May 1885).

5 May 1808, Pierre Cabanis, French physiologist, died (born 5 June 1757).

15 October 1806, Paul Barthez, French physician, died in Paris (born in Montpellier 11 December 1734).

17 September 1806, Guillaume Duchenne, French physician, was born (died 17 September 1875).

13 June 1806, Julia Brace, US blind deaf mute, who contributed much to studies in this area, was born in Connecticut (died in Connecticut 12 August 1884).

31 August 1805, James Currie, Scottish physician, died (born 31 May 1756).

11 April 1804, Otto Erdmann, physician who introduced vaccination into Saxony, was born (died 9 October 1869.

10 February 1804, Carl Rokitansky, founder of the Vienna School of Pathoological Anatomy, was born in Bohemia (died 23 July 1878 in Vienna)

21 January 1804, Ernst Baldinger, German physician, died in Marburg (born near Erfurt 13 May 1738).

27 December 1801, Charles Clay, English surgeon, was born (died 19 September 1893)

17 May 1801, William Heberden, English physician, died (born 1710).

9 March 1801, Johann Ackermann, German physician (born 17 February 1756) died.

6 October 1799, Physician William Withering died in Birmingham, England.

7 September 1799, James Syme, Scottish surgeon, was born in Edinburgh (died 26 June 1870 in Edinburgh)

28 September 1799, Pierre Brasdor, French surgeon, died (born 1721).

19 November 1798, Caesar Hawkins, British surgeon, was born (died 20 July 1884).

11 December 1797, Richard Brockelsby, English physician, died (born 11 August 1722).

27 October 1797, Andrew Combe, physiologist, was born (died 9 August 1847).

18 July 1797, Sir Robert Christison, Scottish physician, was born (died 23 January 1882).

24 June 1795, German physiologist Ernst Heinrich Weber was born in Wittemberg. He began, in 1826, experiments with two point skin stimulation; how close can two needle points be felt before they are perceived as just one sensation.

1 June 1795, Pierre Desault, French surgeon, died (born 6 February 1744).

28 October 1794, Robert Liston, surgeon, was born (died 7 December 1847).

13 July 1794, Scottish physician James Lind died in Hampshire, England.

13 April 1794, Jean Pierre Marie was born in France. He studied the nervous system,located the centre of respiration, and showed that the cerebellum controlled muscular movements.

7 November 1793, Antoine Clot, French physician, was born (died 28 August 1868).

29 October 1791, John Elliotson, English physician, was born (died 29/ July 1868).

5 February 1790, William Cullen, physician, died (born 15 April 1710).

23 December 1789, Charles Epee, who did much for the deaf-mute, died (born 25 November 1712).

22 December 1788, Percivall Pott, English surgeon, died in London (born 6 January 1714 in London)

21 December 1788, Thomas Southwood Smith, English physician, was born in Martock, Somerset (died 10 December 1861 in Florence, Italy)

21 October 1788, George Combe, Scottish phrenologist, was born (died14 August 1858).

15 May 1788, Neil Arnott, Scottish physician, was born in Arbroath (died 2 March 1874 in London).

8 March 1787, Karl Grafe, German surgeon, was born (died 4 July 1840).

11 February 1786, James Cowles Prichard, English physician, was born in Ross, Herefordshire (died 23 December 1848 in London)

20 August 1785, Valentine Mott, US surgeon, was born (died 26 April 1865).

22 February 1785, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, French physician, was born (died 27 October 1845 in Paris)

30 March 1783, William Hunter, British physician, died (born 23 May 1718).

16 February 1781, Rene Laennec, French doctor who invented and named the stethoscope, was born in Quimper, Brittany.

26 December 1780, John Fothergill, English physician, died (born 8 March 1712).

10 October 1780, John Abercrombie, Scottish physician (died 145 November 1844) was born in Aberdeen.

6 October 1777, Guillaume Dupuytren, French surgeon, was born (died 8 February 1835).

10 February 1773, John Gregory,Scottish physician, died (born 3 June 1724).

17 December 1772, Francois Broussart, French physician, was born (died 17 November 1838).

6 December 1771, Giovanni Morgagni, Italian anatomist, died (born 25 February 1682).

9 September 1770, Bernhard Albinus, German anatomist, died in Leiden (born 14 February 1697 in Frankfurt on Oder).

23 August 1768,� Sir Astley Cooper, English surgeon, was born (died 12 February 1841).

3 April 1764, John Abernethy, British surgeon, was born in London (died 20 April 1831 in Enfield).

12 May 1763, John Bell, Scottish surgeon, was born in Edinburgh (died in Rome 15 April 1820).

5 June 1757, Pierre Cabanis, French physiologist, was born (died 5 May 1808).

31 May 1756, James Currie, Scottish physician, was born (died 31 August 1805).

10 April 1755, Samuel Hahnemann, founder of homeopathy, was born (died 2 July 1843).

10 April 1752, William Cheselden, English surgeon, died (born 19 October 1688).

1749, David Hartley (born 30 August 1705 in Yorkshire, England), in his work Observations on man, first used the term �psychology� as a systematic study of the operation of the mind.

29 August 1749, Physician Sir Gilbert Blane was born in Blanefield, Scotland. In 1795 he got the Royal Navy to make consumption of lime juice by sailors compulsory to prevent scurvy. This earned British sailors the nickname �limeys�.

6 February 1744, Pierre Desault, French surgeon, was born (died 1 June 1795)

20 September 1742, Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, instructor of deaf-mutes, was born in Haute-Garonne (died 10 May 1822 in Paris).

23 September 1738, Hermann Boerhaave, Dutch physician, died in Leiden (born near Leiden 31 December 1668).

13 May 1738, Ernst Baldinger, German physician, was born near Erfurt (died in Marburg 21 January 1804).

11 December 1734, Paul Barthez, French physician, was born in Montpellier (died in Paris 15 October 1806).

23 May 1733, Friedrich Mesmer, medical researcher, was born (died 5 March 1815).

13 February 1728, John Hunter, British surgeon, was born (died 16 October 1793).

3 June 1724, John Gregory,Scottish physician, was born (died 10 February 1773).

11 August 1722, Richard Brockelsby, English physician, was born (died 11 December 1797).

11 May 1722, Peter Camper, Dutch anatomist, was born (died 7 April 1789).

23 May 1718, William Hunter, British physician, was born (died 30 March 1783).

6 January 1714, Percivall Pott, English surgeon, was born in London (died 22 December 1788 in London)

20 October 1713, Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician, died in Edinburgh (born 25 Decemeber 1652 in Edinbiurgh

25 November 1712, Charles Epee, who did much for the deaf-mute, was born (died 23 December 1789).

8 March 1712, John Fothergill, English physician, was born (died 26 December 1780).

10 April 1707, Sir John Pringle, British physician, was born in Roxburghshire (died 18 January 1782 in London)

8 January 1704, Lorenzo Bellini, Italian physician, died in Florence (born in Florence 3 September 1643).

14 February 1697, Bernhard Albinus, German anatomist, was born in Frankfurt on Oder (died 9 September 1770 in Leiden).

30 November 1694, Marcello Malpighi died in Rome.

29 December 1689, Thomas Sydenham, physician, died in London (born 10 September 1624 in Dorset)

19 October 1688, William Cheselden, English surgeon, was born (died 10 April 1752).

9 March 1683, Michael Ettmuller, physician, died (born 26 May 1644).

25 February 1682, Giovanni Morgagni, Italian anatomist, was born (died 6 December 1771).

31 December 1668, Hermann Boerhaave, Dutch physician, was born near Leiden (died in Leiden 23 September 1738).

29 April 1667, John Arbuthnot, British physician, was born (died 27 February 1735).

17 June 1666, Antonio Maria Valsalva was born in Imola, Italy. In 1704 he provided the first detailed description of the physiology of the human ear.

25 December 1652, Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician, was born in Edinbiurgh (died 20 October 1713 in Edinburgh)

30 December 1644, Jan Baptista van Helmont, Flemish physician, died in Vilvoorde, near Brussels.

3 September 1643, Lorenzo Bellini, Italian physician, was born in Florence (died in Florence 8 January 1704).

6 March 1636, Italian physician Sanctorius Sanctorius died in Venice.

24 October 1632, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, naturalist, was born. Inventor of the microscope, he was the first person to see bacteria.

10 March 1628, Marcello Malpighi was born in Crevalcore, Italy. In 1660 he demonstrated, using the newly-invented microscope. that the lungs consist of many small air pockets and a complex system of capillaries.

5 December 1624, Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss anatomist, died in Basel.

9 May 1622, Jean Pecquet, French physician, was born in Dieppe. In 1647 he discovered the thoracic duct.

27 January 1621, Birth of Thomas Willis at Great Bedwyn, England. In 1659 he published� De febribus, describing typhoid fever.

20 October 1616, Thomas Bartholin, physician, was born.

15 March 1614, Physician Franciscus Sylvius was born in Hanau, Germany. He was one of the first physicians to abandon the theory that disease was caused by an imbalance of the four humors (blood, bkack bile, yellow bile and phlegm) and attributed it to an acid-base imbalance instead.

23 February 1603, Andreas Caesalpinus, physician to Pope Clement III, died (born 1519).

7 November 1599, Gasparo Tagliacozzi, Italian surgeon, died in Bologna (born 1546 in Bologna)

20 December 1590, Ambroise Pare, known as the father of modern surgery, died in Paris.

12 January 1579, Jan Baptista van Helmont was born in Brussels, Belgium. In 1626 he proposed the diseases were caused by tiny organisms he called archaea.

21 September 1576, Girolamo Cardan, Italian physician, died (born 24 September 1501).

27 August 1574, Bartolomeo Eustachio, Italian anatomist, died in Urbino.

10 May 1566, Leonhard Fuchs, German physician, died (born 17 January 1501)

9 October 1562, Fallopius Gabriello, anatomist, died.

29 March 1561, Sanctorius Sanctorius, physician, was born in Justinopolis (Yugoslavia). He invented a device that used a pendulum to count heatbeats.

26 April 1558, Jean Francois Fernal, French physician, died in Fontainebelau.

20 May 1537, Hieronymous Fabricius, physician, was born in Italy. In 1604 he published a major work on embryology.

20 October 1524, Thomas Linacre, physician to King Henry VII and VIII and founder of the Royal College of Physicians in 1518, died.

31 December 1514, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius was born. In 1543 he published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body)

2 August 1512, Alessandro Achillini, Italian anatomist, (born 29 October 1453 in Bologna) died in Bologna.

29 September 1511, Physician Michael Servetus was born in Villanueva de Sixena, Spain.

24 September 1501, Girolamo Cardan, Italian physician, was born (died 21 September 1576).

17 January 1501, Leonhard Fuchs, German physician, was born (died 10 May 1566)

15 May 1482, Paolo Toscanelli, Italian physician, died in Florence

29 October 1463, �Alessandro Achillini, Italian anatomist, (died 2 August 1512 in Bologna) was born in Bologna.

370 BCE. Death of the great physician Hippocrates, born ca. 460 BC.

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