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small pox vaccination
English doctor, Edward Jenner, published his treatise “On the Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation,” in which he summarized his discoveries and expressed hope that “the annihilation of the smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice -
anesthesia
William T. G. Morton (1819-1868) made history by being first in the world to publicly and successfully demonstrate the use of ether anesthesia for surgery. -
prosthetics
Douglas Bly invented and patented the Doctor Bly’s anatomical leg in 1858. -
x-ray machine
German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally discovered X-rays. Within a year, the first radiology department opened in a Glasgow hospital, and the department head produced the first pictures of a kidney stone and a penny lodged in a child’s throat. -
insulin injections
James Collip injected the first successful insulin shot after it had previously failed on 14 year old boy 12 days prior. -
penicillin
Penicillin was discovered in London in September of 1928
one of the world’s first antibiotics
Dr. Alexander Fleming -
organ transplant
Richard and Ronald Herrick were identical twins, but Richard was dying of kidney disease. Ronald donated one of his kidneys, and it was successfully transplanted into Richard.
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston -
chemotherapy
Metastatic cancer was first cured in 1956 when methotrexate was used to treat a rare tumor called choriocarcinoma.
the use of methotrexate was just beginning to be explored. It would soon prove useful in treating breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and osteogenic sarcoma -
birthcontrol pill
Since 1916, Margaret Sanger had been fighting for the right of birth control and finally in 1960 the first oral contraceptive, Enovid, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as contraception. -
CT scan machine
nvented in 1972 by British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield
The first clinical CT scanners were installed between 1974 and 1976
