History of Medicine

Early domestication of plants and animals: ca. 9000 BC

First Urban centres (Mesopotamia): ca. 4000 BC

Writing invented: ca. 3000 BC

• 650 BC — Epilepsy described (Babylonian text)
• 585 BC — beginnings of Greek philosophy
• 430 BC — plague of Athens

Birth of Plato (428 BC)

399 BC — Death of Socrates

384 BC — Aristotle of Stagira born

• 310 BC — Praxagoras, of Cos, active

300 BC — Alexandrian Museum and Library founded

• c. 200 BC — Chinese herbal Pen T’sao

Pliny the Elder born (23 AD)

• 40 AD — On Medicine, Celsus
• 60 AD — Dioscorides active

Christianity legalised in Rome (313 AD)

• 350 — First hospitals in Eastern Roman Empire
• 390 — Fabiola founds a hospital in Rome
• 512 — De Materia Medica (illustrated edition), Dioscorides
• 541 — First plague pandemic
• 700 — Japan’s ‘age of plagues’ begins
• 1037 — Canon of Medicine author, ibn Sina (Avicenna), dies

School of Salerno: 1080

• 1559 — De Re Anatomica, Realdo Colombo
• 1610 — First well-documented Caesarian section (Germany)

Pilgrim Fathers leave for the New World in the Mayflower (1618)

• 1621 — The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
• 1628 — De Motu cordis (On the Circulation of the Blood), William Harvey
• 1630 — Obstetrical forceps invented, Peter Chamberlen
• 1745 — The Company of Surgeons splits from the Barbers in London
• 1747 — Primae Lineae Physiologiae – first textbook on physiology, Albert von Haller; citrus fruits cure scurvy, James Lind
• 1748 — Account of the Putrid Sore Throat – diphtheria, John Fothergill
• 1751 — St Lukes (large public mental institution) opens in London;
  • Pupillary light reflex demonstrated by Robert Whytt
• 1752 — Theory and Practice or Treatise on Midwifery, William Smellie (first scientific approach to obstetrics)
• 1753 — A Treatise on the Scurvy, James Lind
• 1759 — Specialised organs develop out of unspecialised tissue: Wolff, Caspar Friedrich
• 1761 — Percussion of chest used for diagnosis: Auenbrugger, Leopold
• 1763 — First American medical society
• 1766 — Nervous stimulation controls muscular action: Albrecht von Haller
• 1768 — Observations on the Dropsy of the Brain: Robert Whytt
• 1771 — The Natural History of the Human Teeth: John Hunter

James Cook circumnavigates the southern oceans (1772)

• 1773 — digestive action of saliva: Spallanzani, Lazzaro
• 1774 — oxygen discovered: Priestly, Joseph
  • Hypnosis used as a medical treatment: Mesmer, Franz [mesmerising]

American Declaration of Independence: 1775

• 1775 — Environmental factors can cause cancer: Pott, Percival [Pott’s fracture]
• 1780 — Experiments with muscles and electricity: Galvani, Luigi [Galvanism]
• 1781 — Composition of water determined: Cavendish, Henry [Cavendish experiment]
• 1785 — Digitalis (from foxglove) to cure dropsy: Withering, William

George Washington 1st American President / French Revolution begins (1789)

• 1789 — Traité elementaire de Chimie, Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent [guillotined in 1794]
• 1793 — Yellow Fever epidemic: Philadelphia
  • The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, Matthew Baillie
• 1795 — Experiment with nitrous oxide: Thomas Beddoes & Humphry Davy
• 1796 — Smallpox vaccination: Jenner, Edward
• 1798 — An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus, Thomas Robert [Malthusian catastrophe]
• 1800 — Post-mortem changes in human organs: Bichat, Francois
  • Chlorine used to purify water
  • Nitrous oxide used as an anaesthetic
• 1801 — more humane treatment of the insane advocated: Pinel, Philippe [moral therapy]
  • Young, Thomas: cause of astigmatism [Young temperament]

Napoleon Bonaparte crowned Emperor of France (1804)

Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

• 1805 — morphine isolated: Sertürner, Frederick

Slave trade abolished within the British Empire (1807)

• 1809 — first successful ovariotomy (performed without an anaesthetic)
• 1810 — homeopathy: Hahnemann, Samuel
• 1811 — Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain, Charles Bell
• 1812 — Medical Inquiries And Observations Upon The Diseases Of The Mind,Rush, Benjamin

Battle of Waterloo (1815)

Tambora volcano (Indonesia) eruption causes two cold summers in Europe and North America (1815) [Year Without a Summer]

• 1816 — stethoscope invented: Laennec, René
• 1817 — first cholera pandemic
  • An essay on the shaking palsy, James Parkinson

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

• 1821 — Facial paralysis described: Bell, Charles [Bell’s Palsy]

Liberia founded as colony for freed slaves: 1822

• 1823 — Hydrochloric acid in stomach secretions: Prout, William
  • The Lancet started
• 1824 — Carbon dioxide used on animals as general anesthetic: Hickman, Henry
• 1825 — First tracheotomy: Bretonneau, Pierre

First railway, from Stockton to Darlington: 1825

• 1826 — describes symptoms of and names diphtheria, distinguishing it from scarlet fever: Bretonneau, Pierre
• 1827 — kidney disease described: Bright, Richard [Bright’s disease]
• 1828 — Urea synthesised: Wohler, Friedrich
• 1829 — Haemophilia described: Schönlein, Johann [Henoch-Schönlein purpura]
• 1830 — different types of nerves distinguished: Bell, Charles

Charles Darwin joins crew of HMS Beagle (1831)

• 1832 — codeine isolated: Robiquet, Pierre-Jean [asparagine]
  • Warburton Anatomy Act legalises sale of bodies for dissection in England
  • Cancer of the lymph nodes described: Hodgkin, Thomas [Hodgkin’s disease]

1834 — New Poor Law in England

• 1834 — amalgam used for filling teeth
  • An essay on Clinical Instruction, Pierre Louis

Registration Act (births, deaths, and marriages) in England (1838)

• 1839 — Third Cholera Pandemic
  • the cell defined as the basic unit of animal structure: Schwann, Theodor [cell theory, Schwann cells, pepsin]

First Opium War between China and Britain (1840)

• 1840 — Institute of Nursing founded in London: Fry, Elizabeth
• 1841 — Treatise on microscopic anatomy, Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle [On Miasma and Contagia]
• 1842 — Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, Edwin Chadwick
  • sulfuric ether first used as anaesthetic by: Crawford Williamson Long (1842)
• 1844 — Nitrous oxide used to pull one of his own teeth painlessly: Wells, Horace

First failure of Irish potato crop (1845)

Smithsonian Institution established in Washington, DC (1846; opened 1855)

• 1846 — first publicly demonstrated use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic, Massachusetts General Hospital: Morton, William [1944 Paramount Pictures film The Great Moment]
• 1847 — Chloroform used to relieve the pain of childbirth: Simpson, James Young
• 1848 — First Public Health Act sets up General Board of Health in Britain, leading to local medical officers (LMO) of health
• 1849 — Anaemia described: Addison, Thomas
• 1851 — Ophthalmoscope introduced: von Helmholtz, Herman

David Livingston’s explorations in Africa (1853)

• 1853 — Smallpox vaccination made compulsory in England
  • Chloroform administered to Queen Victoria for the birth of Prince Leopold: Snow, John

Crimean War (1854)

• 1854 — John Snow breaks the street-pump in London [1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak; The Doctor of Broad Street]
• 1855 — Hormone deficiency disease from malfunctioning adrenals: Addison, Thomas [Addison’s disease; Pernicious anemia]
• 1856 — First synthetic dye (mauvine): Perkin, William
• 1858 — Gray’s Anatomy first published
  • Medical Reform Act sets up Medical Register and General Medical Council: Britain
  • Cellularpathologie, Rudolf Virchow
• 1859 — The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
• 1860 — Nightingale Nursing School founded: St. Thomas’s Hospital, London

American Civil War (1861)

• 1861 — Anaerobic bacteria discovered: Pasteur, Louis [Pasteurization; Pasteur Institute]
• 1863 — Sphygmograph invented: Marey, Etienne Jules [sphygmograph]
  • Fourth cholera pandemic
• 1864 — International Red Cross founded

1865 — American Civil War ends and slavery abolished

• 1865 — Plant Hybridity, Gregor Mendel [Mendelian inheritance]

• 1866 — Clinical thermometer developed: Allbutt, Thomas

1865 — Russia sells Alaska to the USA / Dominion of Canada established

• 1867 — First international medical congress: Paris

Opening of Suez Canal (1869)

• 1869 — Skin-grafting described: Reverdin, Jacques
• 1871 — Descent of Man, Charles Darwin