 | | | | Today In Health History Headlines | | | 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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