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460 BCE
400 B.C.
His theory of disease was that the environment, malnourishment, toxin build-up in the body, and other behavioral observances, are the causes of disease (Canak, G., et al. 2016). He also found how disease seemed to come about in different geographical locations (Merril, R. M. 2021). Hippocrates was one of the first medical practitioners from his era to believe that disease was not an act of God (Canak, G., et al. 2016). -
1572
Cornelius Drebbel (1572-1633), the Janssen brothers (1590s), Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), and Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680)
All members of this group are due credit for their use of, or invention, of the microscope and its contribution to science and epidemiology as whole. Epidemiologists, particularly those mentioned throughout this timeline, would not have been able to accomplish all that they did without it. -
John Graunt (1620-1674)
John Graunt is the developer of what is now known as Vital Statistics(Merril, R. M. 2021). His kept detailed records of mortality in London in order to better understand disease(Merril, R. M. 2021). Through his contribution to the field of epidemiology, we are now able to fine tune the study of disease among certain populations, sex, living conditions, age, race and other contributory causes. -
Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689)
Thomas Sydenham did not initially practice medicine, but instead held positions in the military and as a college administrator. Being influenced by Robert Boyle, a coworker of his, he furthered his education to get a license in medicine (Merril, R. M. 2021). He became an advocate for closely monitoring diseases and was able to identify three categories of fevers (Merril, R. M. 2021). -
Bernardo Ramazzini (1633-1714)
Bernardo Ramazzini made many interesting discoveries, whose works centered around protecting and preventing disease among workers in various fields. His inquisitive nature led him to building a career in finding safeguards that protected workers from disease and other ailments. -
James Lind (1716-1794)
James Lind was a surgeon for the Navy in the mid-1700s, whose primary focus was diseases that affected sailors and navy men (Merril, R. M. 2021). He was able to recognize a pattern in time at sea, symptoms, and lifestyle, including diet, which contributed to the vast number of sailors being affected by scurvy during this time period (Merril, R. M. 2021). Through his study, he found lemons and oranges to be an effective cure to this disease. -
Benjamin Jesty (mid-1700s)
Benjamin Jesty was not a medical practitioner, but a farmer. He observed a pattern in the way exposure/diagnosis of cowpox in his milkmaids prevented them from getting smallpox (Merril, R. M. 2021). He exposed his family to the cowpox and as a result they did not smallpox, but he did not get credit for his findings until much later (Merril, R. M. 2021). -
Edward Jenner (1749-1823)
English Physician Edward Jenner heard about the findings of Jesty and using cowpox as a preventative for the smallpox disease (Merril, R. M. 2021). His experiments not only led to the same conclusions as Jesty, but he went as far as to inject excrements from an active cowpox carrier into a little boy who thus developed immunity to smallpox (Merril, R. M. 2021). From this experiment, Jenner then went on to develop the vaccine for smallpox(Merril, R. M. 2021). -
Ignaz Semmelweis (early-mid-1800s)
Epidemiologist Ignaz Semmelweis made one of the most invaluable contributions to medicine and epidemiology. Semmelweis was working in a maternity hospital where a large majority of women and babies were dying from, then termed, childbed fever at an increasing rate(Merril, R. M. 2021). He then noticed that practitioners were going back and forth between autopsies of deceased and diseased bodies and the care of women going into childbirth (Merril, R. M. 2021). -
John Snow (1845)
John Snow is regarded as one of the biggest contributors and founder of the field of epidemiology. His studies and investigative research of disease, specifically cholera, provided the understructure and method for how we track diseases to this day (Cengage. 2020). Snow worked diligently to uncover multiple factors surrounding the spread of cholera in London... -
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Louis Pateur was a French chemist in 1870s Europe during the anthrax epidemic, who had previously succeeded in creating a vaccine for rabies(Merril, R. M. 2021). He witnessed the sheep infected with anthrax being buried and came to find that the bacterial spores from the anthrax were being resurfaced by worms (Merril, R. M. 2021). He then went on to create a vaccine for anthrax... -
Robert Koch (1843-1910)
Koch had a home-based laboratory from which he could study diseases(Merril, R. M. 2021). Koch’s works primarily focused on studying microorganisms and bacteria as they relate to the spread of disease and was successfully able to capture them in images and stains in order to prove their existence(Merril, R. M. 2021). His research proved that disease was caused by the aforementioned and that disease was not of “Spontaneous generation”(Merril, R. M. 2021).
