| Highlights in Medical
History ca. 8000 B.C.
Prehistoric man practiced trephining -- the
first-known surgical treatment.
ca. 2500 B.C. Egyptian physicians
developed the first systematic methods of treating
diseases.
ca. 400s B.C. Hippocrates
showed that diseases have only natural, not supernatural,
causes.
ca. A.D. 100s Galen formulated the first medical
theories based on scientific experimentations.
1100s The first university medical
schools developed in Europe.
1543 Andreas Vesalius published On
the Fabric of the Human Body, the first scientific
study of human anatomy.
mid-1500s Ambroise
Paré introduced advanced surgical techniques.
1628 William
Harvey founded modern physiology with his book on
blood circulation.
1676 Antonie
van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria, which helped
lead to the germ theory of disease.
1736 The world's first successful
appendectomy (to be recorded in history) was performed.
1796 Edward Jenner
gave the first officially recognized vaccination, against
smallpox.
1800 Bichet founded the field of histology,
the study of tissues.
1816 The stethoscope was invented by Laënnec.
1822 Beaumont published a description of
the digestive process.
1842-1846 Crawford Long and William
T.G. Morton introduced the use of ether, the first
practical anesthestic.
1847 The American Medical Association
was founded.
mid-1800s Florence Nightengale founded
the modern nursing profession.
1850s Rudolf Virchow pioneered in pathology,
the scientific study of diseases.
mid- to late 1800s Louis Pasteur and
Robert Koch firmly established that certain bacteria
cause certain diseases.
1865 Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic
methods to surgery.
1866 The clinical thermometer was
invented by Allbut.
1884 Klebs-Loeffler discovered the
bacteria responsible for diptheria.
1885 Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine
for rabies.
1894 The bacteria responsible for the
bubonic plague was discovered by Yersin.
1895 Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays,
used in diagnosing diseases and treating cancer
1898 Pierre and Marie
Curie discovered radium, used in treating cancer.
ca. 1900 Sigmund Freud developed the
psychoanalytic method of treating mental illness.
1901 Walter Reed determined that yellow
fever was spread by mosquitoes.
early 1900s Christiaan Eijkman and
Frederick G. Hopkins demonstrated the existence of
vitamins.
1906 Wasserman developed a test for
syphilis.
ca. 1910 Paul Ehrlich introduced chemotherapy,
the use of chemicals to destroy the microbes responsible
for particular diseases.
1928 Alexander Fleming discovered
penicillin, the first antibiotic drug.
1935 Gerhard Domagk discovered the
ability of sulfa drugs to cure infections in animals.
early 1950s The development of new
techniques and devices revolutionized heart surgery.
early 1950s Jonas Salk developed the
first successful polio vaccine.
1954 American surgeons transplanted a
kidney -- the first successful organ transplant.
1963 Michael DeBakey implanted the first
artifical heart into a human.
1967 Christiaan Barnard performed the
first successful human heart transplant.
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