By Tim Lambert
Ancient Medicine
1,500 BC The Ebers Papyrus is the first known medical book
500 BC Alcmaeon of Croton in Italy says that a body is healthy as long as it has the right balance of hot and cold, wet and dry. If the balance is upset the body falls ill.
460-377 BC Hippocrates lives. He stresses careful observation.
384-322 BC Aristotle lives. He says the body is made up of 4 humours or liquids, phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile.
130-200 AD The Roman doctor Galen lives. He becomes a very influential writer for centuries.
c 98-138 Soranus of Ephesus is a famous obstetrician
c 300 A woman called Metrodora writes a book called On the Diseases and Cures of Women
370 Basil of Caesarea builds a hospital in what is now Turkey
542 A hospital called Hotel-~Dieu is founded in Lyon, France
9th Century Hunain Ibn Ishaq translates Greek writings about medicine into Arabic
c. 1100 A famous woman doctor called Trota of Salerno lives
12th and 13th Centuries Schools of medicine are founded in Europe. In the 13th century, barber-surgeons begin to work in towns. The church runs the only hospitals.
1493-1541 Paracelsus lives. He denounces all medical teaching not based on experience and experiment.
1536 Ambroise Pare mixes egg whites, rose oil, and turpentine to put on wounds.
1543 Andreas Vesalius publishes The Fabric of the Human Body
1628 William Harvey publishes his discovery of how the blood circulates in the body
1658 Jan Swammerdam observes red blood corpuscles
1661 Marcello Malpighi discovers capillaries
1753 James Lind publishes his discovery that fresh fruit or lemon juice prevents scurvy
1796 Edward Jenner introduces vaccination against smallpox
Modern Medicine
1816 Rene Laennec invents the stethoscope
1842 Crawford Long uses ether as an anesthetic
1847 Chloroform is used as an anesthetic by James Simpson
1849 Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman in the USA to qualify as a doctor. In 1859 she became the first woman to have her name entered in the British General Medical Council’s medical register.
1851 The ophthalmoscope is invented
1853 Alexander Wood and Charles Pravaz invent hypodermic syringes
1854 John Snow discovers that cholera is spread by water
1865 Joseph Lister develops antiseptic surgery
1866 Clifford Allbut invents the clinical thermometer
1880 Louis Pasteur invents a cure for chicken cholera
1884 Cocaine is used as a local anesthetic
1885 Pasteur cures rabies. The first successful appendectomy is performed.
1890 Immunization against diphtheria is discovered. Rubber gloves are first used in surgery.
1895 X-rays are discovered
1896 A vaccine for typhoid is discovered
1910 Salvarsan, a drug used to cure syphilis is discovered
1914 The first non-direct blood transfusion is made
1928 Penicillin is discovered by Alexander Fleming. The iron lung is invented.
1932 The first blood bank is created, in Russia
1935 Prontosil is used to treat food poisoning
1937 The first blood bank in the USA is created by Bernard Fantus
1943 The first artificial kidney machine is made
1953 Jonas Salk announces he has a vaccine for polio
1958 A Swede named Rune Elmqvist invents the first implantable pace maker
1963 A vaccine for measles is discovered
1967 The first heart transplant is performed by Christiaan Barnard
1978 The first test-tube baby is born
1983 MRI scanning is introduced
A modern hospital in Portsmouth
2005 The first face transplant takes place
2011 The first leg transplant takes place
2012 The first womb transplant takes place
