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Period: 500 to Dec 31, 1300
Middle Ages
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Jan 1, 900
Al Rhazes discovers the difference between smallpox and measles
Al Rhazes found that measles brought more anxiety and nausea, while smallpox brought back pain to a greater degree than measles. -
Jan 1, 1010
Iba Sina writes Book of Healing and Canon of Medicine
Iba Sina wrote two books, the Book of Healing, and the Canon of Medicine. The Canon of Medicine is a 5-part encyclopedia of contemporary Islamic medical knowledge, and the Book of Healing and discusses contemporary knowledge of chemistry, astronomy, psychology, philosophy, and paleontology. -
Jan 1, 1098
Hildegard writes Causae et Curae
Hildegard wrote Causae et Curae, a summary of medical knowledge at the time in middle-aged western Europe. It included diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and details of many illnesses of the time. -
Jan 1, 1180
Rogerius writes a treatise on surgery
Rogerius wrote The Practice of Surgery around 1180, and it included punctual, brief, and to-the-point descriptions of surgeries from the time, without long citations to other medical works. Rogerius was also the first person to use the word Lupus to describe malar rash. -
Jan 1, 1219
Roger Bacon
1219-1292
Roger bacon was an English scientist known for the creation of spectacles. He wrote the Opus Majus, the recipe for gunpowder, geology, alchemy, astronomy, and optical studies. -
Period: Jan 1, 1301 to
Renaissance
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Apr 15, 1452
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo started studies on human anatomy under Verrocchio, who wanted his students to have a thorough understanding of the subjects he was teaching. Leonardo was given permission to dissect cadavers by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. He made over 240 drawings of the human anatomy and wrote over 13,000 words to a treatise of the human body. -
May 20, 1533
Hieronymus Fabricius
Hieronymus Fabricius was a "The Father of Embryology" and a trendsetter in the field of medicine. He designed the first permanent dissection theater and also discovered "valves" within veins, which are there to prevent blood from flowing backwards in the veins. He studied animal and human cadavers and made many discoveries, though he didn't understand all of them at the time. -
Jan 1, 1543
De humani corporis fabrica is published
De humani corporis fabrica is a 7 book series on the entirety of the human body written by Andreas Vesalius, a 16th century Flemish anatomist. It included detailed illustrations of the human body and its systems. -
Jan 1, 1545
Ambroise Paré makes alternative to cauterization of bullet wounds
Ambroise Paré (re)started the ligature of arteries on the battlefield as opposed to cauterization and amputation. Cauterization didn't always stop bleeding, and sometimes set patients into shock, and amputation often times made the problem worse. While ligatures were often infected, it was an important advancement nonetheless. -
Apr 1, 1578
William Harvey
William Harvey was a physician of English descent who was the first person to completely describe the process of systemic circulation. -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
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James LInd performs the first experiments on scurvy
Scurvy was a huge scourge for seamen in the 1700s, and while at the time many people thought it was caused by excess work, putrefying foods within the digestive tract, or a humid atmosphere, in reality it was a lack of vitamin C, otherwise known as citric acid, that caused scurvy. James Lind was the first to discover this, by performing experiments involving dietary supplements. Eventually, lemon juice began being ordered in large quantities to be mixed with grog. -
William Withering publishes findings treating Edema with Digitalis
William Withering was a botanist and physician who discovered that Foxglove (digitalis) can be used to treat edemas (Accumulation of of fluids throughout tissues in the body) in the right dosages. Withering, over 9 years, documented 159 cases of using digitalis to treat edemas to various levels of effectiveness. -
Edward Jenner and vaccines
Smallpox has attacked our species for millennia, killing billions and billions of us opportunistically and without mercy. We quickly found out that people afflicted with the disease could not be infected again, leading to survivors being used as nurses for the newly afflicted. It wasn't until 1796 that inoculation was used to treat smallpox. On May 14th, 1796, Edward Jenner inserted cowpox matter into skin of James Philips, successfully making him immune to smallpox. -
James Young Simpson
James Young Simpson is the man credited with the creation of Obstetrical forceps and popularizing the use of chloroform and its anesthetic properties. He was born on the 7th of June, 1811 in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland, and died on the 6th of May, 1870 in Edinburgh. He also published multiple papers on syphilis and leprosy. -
Joseph Lister, creator of Listerine
Joseph Lister was an English Surgeon, and in 1879, Joseph Lister created Listerine, now known as a mouthwash, but at the time it was an anesthetic used in his surgeries. It's antibacterial properties are of note. Joseph Lister also had a bacteria named after him, said bacteria being listeria, otherwise known as Listeria monocytogenes. -
Period: to
Modern World
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First use of motor-ambulances in war at The First Battle of The Marne
In the beginning of the first world war, horse-drawn carriages were used to transport injured personnel, but that all changed in the First Battle of The Marne. U.S. Ambassador Myron T. Herrick asked his friends who owned cars to help transport soldiers to a school-turned-hospital. that helped make the difference between life and death for thousands of French soldiers. -
Carrel and Dakin create a solution to wound infection
In the beginning of WW1, old surgeons used Listerine for its antiseptic properties, but even the strongest antiseptic was useless in such filthy conditions as the trenches of the western front. The method of antiseptic irrigation created by Dakin and Carrel required debriding of the wound, but it still created more favorable results than Listerine or traditional antiseptics. It was something that utilized sodium hypochlorite, which was gentler on living tissue than its alternatives. -
Calmette and Guerin use the BCG vaccine in humans
Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin were two Frenchmen who discovered the BCG vaccine. In 1908 they started with sub culturing cultures of tuberculosis bacillus in a glycerin-bile-potato mixture. After 13 years of sub culturing, it was ready for use in humans. In Lübeck, Germany, 240 infants were vaccinated shortly after birth, and 72 of them died. Criminal proceedings followed, but it found that the batch of vaccines were contaminated, and the doctors werent at fault. -
Fidel Pagés
Fidel Pagés was a Spanish physician born in Huesca. He served the Spanish Army, and developed epidural anesthesia. In 1921 he published Anestesia Metamérica in two different journals. He died on September 21, 1923. -
Alexander Fleming discovers Penicillin
On September 3rd, 1928, Alexander Fleming returned home from holidays and began sorting through his petri dishes containing Staphylococcus colonies. In one of them, a blob of mold had grown in the middle of the dish, and the area around it was free from the bacterial cultures. After further study, the 'mold juice' was found to be Penicillium notatum, a rare strain of penicillin. Penicillin could be used to treat Pneumonia, gonorrhea, and a variety of other infections. -
Period: to
21st Century
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First draft of the Human Genome is published
The Human Genome Project was a publicly funded, 10+ year long project to sequence the human genome. The significance of this project was not only in the field of discovering more about ourselves, but also in the field of medicine. Understanding the human genome can help us use things like CRISPR to remove disease-causing genes in the future and even prevent deadly diseases from even occurring. -
First use of AbioCor artificial heart
On July 2nd of 2001, Robert Tools was the first human test subject of the AbioCor artificial heart. After the operation, he continued to live for 151 days before he died of a stroke. Tom Christerson, the second test subject, survived for 512 days after the operation, and only died because the heart wore out. While the R&D has supposedly stopped, it was nonetheless an important milestone in medical science. -
Common green bottle fly larvae cleared for medical use
In 2004, the FDA cleared Common green bottle fly larvae for medical use. They're 'medical grade' and sterilized, so they won't infect wounds. They can be used to treat necrotic tissue, neuropathic foot ulcers, and traumatic/post surgery wounds that won't heal. -
Gardasil vaccine approved
In 2006, the Gardasil vaccine was approved by the FDA. Not only was it one of the first vaccines to combat HPV, it was also one of the first vaccines to try to directly combat a cause of cancer. -
OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28: The four factors that change skin cells into iPCs
In Embryonic development, all mammals have things called stem cells, which are programmable cells that can be used to form any other kind of cell that the human body may need. They're extremely useful in treating some health issues in the human body like osteoarthritis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, and more. OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, and LIN28 are four transcription factors(?) that can help transform human cutaneous cells and transform them into diet stem cells (iPCs.)
