French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) lent his name to a beheading device, the guillotine, used extensively during the French Revolution.

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 opened its doors in Ithaca, N.Y. on this date in 1868, its faculty included a professor of veterinary medicine.

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 New England Journal of Medicine can trace its roots to the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Down syndrome has been around for many centuries, but was long 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.