Timeline of medicine and medical technology

Timeline of medicine and medical technology

c. 2600s BC - Imhotep wrote texts describing diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases in 3rd dynasty Egypt.
c. 1500s BC - Saffron used as a medicine on the Aegean island of Thera in ancient Greece
c. 500 BC¹ - Sushruta wrote Sushruta Samhita describing over 120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical procedures and classified human surgery in 8 categories. Performed cosmetic surgery
420 BC - Hippocrates begins the scientific study of medicine by maintaining that diseases have natural causes and puts forth the Hippocratic Oath, marking the birth of modern medicine
280 BC - Herophilus studies the nervous system and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves
250 BC - Erasistratus studies the brain and distinguishes between the cerebrum and cerebellum
50-70 - Pedanius Dioscorides writes De Materia Medica - a precursor of modern pharmacopeias that was in use for almost 1600 years
180 - Galen studies the connection between paralysis and severance of the spinal cord
c. 1010 - Avicenna writesThe Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine
1242 - Ibn an-Nafis suggests that the right and left ventricles of the heart are separate and describes the lesser circulation of blood
1249 - Roger Bacon writes about convex lens spectacles for treating long-sightedness
1403 - Venice implements a quarantine against the Black Death
1451 - Nicholas of Cusa invents concave lens spectacles to treat myopia
early 16th century: Paracelsus, an alchemist by trade, rejects occultism and pioneers the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine
1543 - Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes medicine
1546 - Girolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities
1553 - Miguel Serveto describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs
1556 - Amato Lusitano describes venous valves in the Ázigos vein and their function for the first time
1559 - Realdo Colombo describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs in detail
1563 - Garcia de Orta founds tropical medicine with his treatise on Indian diseases and treatments
1603 - Girolamo Fabrici studies leg veins and notices that they have valves which allow blood to flow only toward the heart
1628 - William Harvey explains the vein-artery system and structure of the heart in Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus
1701 - Giacomo Pylarini gives the first smallpox inoculations
1747 - James Lind discovers that citrus fruits prevent scurvy
1763 - Claudius Aymand performs the first successful appendectomy
1790s - Samuel Hahnemann rages against the prevalent practice of bloodletting as a universal cure and founds homeopathy
1796 - Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination method
1800 - Humphry Davy announces the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide
1816 - Rene Laennec invents the stethoscope
1842 - Crawford Long performs the first surgical operation using anaesthesia
1847 - Ignaz Semmelweis studies and prevents the transmission of puerperal fever
1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to gain a medical degree
1867 - Lister publishes Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, based partly on Pasteur's work.
1870 - Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease
1881 - Louis Pasteur develops an anthrax vaccine
1882 - Louis Pasteur develops a rabies vaccine
1890 - Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins and uses them to develop tetanus and diphtheria vaccines
1901 - Karl Landsteiner discovers the existence of different human blood types
1906 - Frederick Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes scurvy and rickets
1907 - Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness
1908 - Victor Horsley and R. Clarke invents the stereotactic method
1917 - Julius Wagner-Jauregg discovers the malarial fever shock therapy for general paresis of the insane
1921 - Edward Mellanby discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets
1923 First vaccine for Diphtheria
1926 First vaccine for Pertussis
1927 First vaccine for Tuberculosis
1927 First vaccine for Tetanus
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1929 - Hans Berger discovers human electroencephalography
1932 - Gerhard Domagk develops a chemotherapeutic cure for streptococcus
1933 - Manfred Sakel discovers insulin shock therapy
1935 - Ladislas J. Meduna discovers metrazol shock therapy
1935 First vaccine for Yellow Fever
1936 - Egas Moniz discovers prefrontal lobotomy for treating mental diseases
1938 - Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini discover electroconvulsive therapy
1949 First implant of intraocular lens, by Sir Harold Ridley
1952 - Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine
1957 - Walter Grey Walter invents the brain EEG topography (toposcope)
1962 First Oral Polio Vaccine
1964 First vaccine for Measles
1965 Frank Pantridge installs the first portable defibrillator
1967 First vaccine for Mumps
1970 First vaccine for Rubella
1981 First vaccine for Hepatitis B
1987 - Ben Carson, leading a 70-member medical team in Germany, was the first to separate occipital craniopagus twins.

Footnote

1. The date at which the Sushruta Samhita was compiled is uncertain. A Tribute to Hinduism and other sources agree that Sushruta lived in the 5th century B.C., and so even the date 500 B.C. may be too early.

Medicine timelines | History of medicine

Cronología de la medicina y de la tecnología médica | 医学と医療の年表

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