 | | | | Today In Health History Headlines | | | On this date in 1909, Congress passed the first U.S. law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of opium, an addictive narcotic drug.
On this date in 1866, noted British physician Sir Arthur Keith was born in Scotland.
Before Danny Thomas made it big as an actor, he prayed for guidance from the patron saint of hopeless causes, St. Jude Thaddeus.
A California woman who was told she could never have children made history on this date in 1984 by giving birth to the first child by embryo transfer.
Until a working vaccine was developed against tuberculosis, the primary method for treatment was isolation and rest at a sanatorium.
Emil Grubbe furthered the use of the X-ray by using radiation therapy to reduce cancer pain.
Although polio vaccines were developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, it was John Enders who pioneered research on the cultivation of polio and other viruses.
More than a half-century ago, a then little-known pharmaceutical company named Chas. Pfizer & Co. Inc. was selling penicillin and other products through other companies.
Long ago, picks and enamel scissors were the dentist's implements of choice to remove decayed tooth tissue.
In 1930, a group of physicians began flying to other countries to demonstrate the latest methods in surgery and medicine.
On Jan. 23, 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell met her goal of committing "heresy with intelligence" by becoming the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree.
The first medical pamphlet published in the United States was written by a Boston minister/doctor to address the smallpox epidemic that ravaged the New World in the 17th century.
President Lyndon Johnson presented the first Medicare card to former President Harry S. Truman on this date in 1966.
Although William Williams Keen created a number of innovative surgical techniques in the 19th century, he is probably better known as the surgeon who took part in the secret operation on President Grover Cleveland in 1893.
Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, first presented his discovery of an X-ray device in December 1895.
The Georgia Infirmary, the first hospital established for blacks, was chartered on Christmas Eve, 1832, in Savannah.
Jesse Bennett performed the first successful Cesarean section on American soil on this day in 1794.
In 1978, a new California law gave pregnant working women unpaid maternity leave of up to 4 months and a promise that they could return to their old jobs or similar ones when their leave ended.
On this date in 1861, the French physician Prosper Mιniθre published his first report about a malady of the inner ear that eventually became known as Mιniθre's disease.
On this date in 1964, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry released the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health.
On this date in 1949, two doctors saw something new.
Norman E. Shumway performed the world's third human heart transplant, and the first on U.S. soil, on this date in 1968.
Physiologist Joseph Erlanger's research on the nervous tissue of frogs led to an increased knowledge of the nature of nerve impulses.
When he was only 3, Louis Braille, born on this date in 1809, was permanently blinded in an accident with a leatherworking awl in his father's saddlemaking shop in Coupvray, France.
Physiology, the branch of biology that studies how organisms live and function, was the subject of a national society formed late in the 19th century to promote scientific research.
After the Civil War, black doctors were needed to tend to the many freed slaves in the city of Nashville, Tenn.
On this date in 1750, two doctors who lived in Jamaica shot each other dead in a duel.
Elizabeth Carr, the first U.S. test-tube baby, was born on this date in 1981.
Slaves living in Savannah, Ga., who needed to be hospitalized, were usually sent to the first black hospital in this country, the Georgia Infirmary.
Johann Wepfer was the first to demonstrate the appearance of blood vessels by injecting them with colored liquids.
An effective immunization against tuberculosis had been out of reach until the French team of Camille Guιrin and Albert Calmette.
On this date in 1846, surgeon Robert Liston used general anesthetic to remove a man's leg at University College Hospital in London.
On this date in 1912, an amateur archaeologist announced that he had found two skulls belonging to a precursor of man, at the Piltdown Quarry in Sussex, England.
On this date in 1776, prominent Philadelphia physician William Shippen Jr. poked fun at the American army when he wrote his brother-in-law Richard Henry Lee, "I wish you would introduce a new step into your army. I am sure they are perfect in the back step by this time."
Hugo Munsterberg, a pioneer in the field of industrial psychology, examined the workplace, focusing on monotony, attention and fatigue, and physical and social influences.
Growing up in Iceland just below the Arctic Circle, Niels Finsen was acutely aware of the good effects of sunlight.
Using the mold on bread as his focus of experimentation, Edward L. Tatum was able to track the genetic inheritance patterns of the mold known as Neurospora.
As a young man in Chicago, Charles Rudolph Walgreen worked in drugstores while studying pharmacy in his free time.
There was a time when deaf children and adults were institutionalized in asylums because they were often considered mentally impaired or unintelligent.
Famous British man of letters Samuel Johnson kept copious notes and diaries about his life, most of which was filled with illness.
On this date in 1991, Kimberly Bergalis, 23, died of AIDS after contracting HIV from her dentist
On this date in 1846, English physician Thomas Bevill Peacock described four congenital heart defects often occurring together.
Edward Robinson Squibb was a U.S. Navy medical officer and chemist concerned about the generally poor quality of drugs being made during the 19th century.
On this date in 1967, cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard and a team of 20 other surgeons implanted the heart of a 25-year-old female victim of an accident into a 55-year-old man.
Today is World AIDS Day, a day devoted to increasing the public's awareness about acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Virginia Henderson is regarded by many as the first lady of nursing.
The first operation to remove a brain tumor was performed by the nephew of the famous 19th century British surgeon Joseph Lister.
Russell Morse Wilder contributed a great deal to understanding diabetes.
When the American Medical Association was founded in 1846, it barred women from its membership, furthering the discrimination being practiced against women by members of the medical profession.
Although penicillin was discovered in the late 19th century, its use wasn't accepted until the 1940s, when it was produced as the first true antibiotic.
Until the 1940s, many biologists thought of the cell as simply a bag of enzymes.
Italian physician Cesare Lombroso gained notoriety in the 19th century for his studies relating to criminology.
The field of dental hygiene can be attributed to the foresight of one man: Alfred Civilion Fones.
The invention of the life preserver during the 19th century was a milestone in public health, mainly because knowing how to swim did not become essential to Americans until the early 20th century.
While searching for a blood factor thought to be responsible for promoting blood clotting, Edward Adelbert Doisy discovered the chemical nature of vitamin K.
Informing the public on issues of health was the goal when the Cleveland Health Museum opened on this date in 1940, under the direction of Bruno Gebhard, M.D.
Ephraim McDowell received a somewhat unorthodox medical education: He was taught by a private physician in Virginia before attending the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1793.
Dr. Rudolf Matas, professor of surgery at the University of Louisiana (now Tulane University) from 1895 to 1927, was a pioneer in the surgery of the blood vessels, chest and abdomen and was hailed by some as the "father of vascular surgery."
On this date in 1821, 68 apothecaries met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia to establish better scientific standards and provide better training for apothecary students and apprentices.
Basketball takes its roots from a couple of peach baskets and a Canadian physician and physical education teacher, Dr. James A. Naismith.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky died of tuberculosis when he was only 37, yet he was already a widely known Russian psychologist.
Let's all smile brightly to commemorate the birth of dentist John Allen, who was born on this date in 1810.
Dr. George Miller Sternberg began his distinguished career as an assistant surgeon in the Union army and was even captured during the Civil War.
The seizures and convulsions of epilepsy are associated with a variety of brain dysfunctions including, but not limited to, a head injury, an infection, a tumor, a stroke or even an inherited predisposition.
On this day in 1948, an asphyxiating cloud of smog enveloped Donora, Pa., a Monongahela River town of 14,000 people and the location of the Donora Zinc Works and the American Steel and Wire Co.
On this date in 1988, Chinese scientists announced that they had discovered an herbal male contraceptive.
Jonas Salk, born on this date in 1914, is renowned for creating the first successful polio vaccine.
William Harvey was the first to prove that blood continuously circulates throughout the body in a contained system.
An infant girl known only as "Baby Fae" made headlines by becoming the first infant to receive a heart transplant from a monkey.
For 20 years, the husband and wife biochemistry research team of Carl and Gerty Cori studied how sugar in the body is converted to glycogen.
Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was born in Michigan, worked as a dentist in London, even though he trained in America as an otolaryngologist.
Philippe Ricord was said to be a practical joker, but his 19th century studies of sexual diseases were no laughing matter
Daniel Whistler was the first to write about rickets - a bone-deformity disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin D.
On this date in 1916, Margaret Sanger, a public health nurse, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in Brooklyn, N.Y.
On this date in 1923, Paul Drucker, a Danish pediatrician, invented the heel stick, one of the most common ways to withdraw blood from an infant
Charles Everett Koop, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. from 1981 to 1989, was born on this date in 1916.
When Carroll Leevy was an intern and resident at the Jersey City Medical Center, he became interested in researching alcoholic liver disease because of the huge number of cases he treated.
William Quinland was a pathologist and educator who contributed pioneering research on pathology in African-Americans.
Sir Cyril Ludowic Burt was revered during his lifetime, but his work was questioned after his death, which occurred on this date in 1971.
Otto Heinrich Warburg (1883-1970) was born on this date in 1883, in Freiburg, Germany.
When Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., opened its doors on this date in 1868, its faculty included a professor of veterinary medicine - the first American university to offer such training.
A preliminary meeting to discuss the formation of a professional pharmaceutical organization was held in October 1851 at the New York College of Pharmacy.
The prestigious Lancet, a British medical journal, was first published on this date in 1823.
Down syndrome has been around for many centuries but was misinterpreted as a mental disability.
"It is a well-known fact that there are no social, no industrial, no economic problems which are not related to health," noted William H. Welch, the first director of the first school of public health.
Fear of surgery and the pain associated with the surgeon's knife has long been an issue for patients.
One of the most respected physicians of the 17th century, Thomas Sydenham, completed his tome, "Schedula Monitoria de Novae Febris Ingressa," more than 300 years ago today, summing up all he knew about disease.
When Paracelsus became a medical professor at the University of Basel, his first assignment was to burn medical books written by Galen and Avicenna.
Proof that disease could be caused by parasites and fungi was recorded as far back as the 16th century, but discoveries of microscopic organisms were not readily accepted for at least another 100 years.
The first autopsy recorded in the United States took place in September 1639 on an ill-treated apprentice in Salem, Mass.
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