istoryworld
Events relating to medicine
English psychologist Henry Havelock Ellis completes a thirty-year project, his 7-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex
An Aerial Medical Service is launched in Queensland, Australia, subsequently becoming the Flying Doctor Service
Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming accidentally discovers a mould that selectively kills bacteria, and calls it penicillin
A deeply flawed experiment with African American syphilis patients is launched in Tuskegee, Alabama
British biochemist Max Perutz begins the analysis of haemoglobin
Lord Nuffield donates to Commonwealth hospitals 'iron lungs', built at his Morris Oxford factory,
British biologists Ernst Chain and Howard Florey develop penicillin as a safe and useful antibacterial drug
The Medical Research Council in Britain produces a report, by Austin Hill and Richard Doll, linking smoking and lung cancer
US microbiologist Jonas Salk announces the discovery of an effective vaccine against polio
The birth control pill wins FDA approval in the US and goes on sale
The drug Thalidomide, synthesized in West Germany, is shown to have been the cause of severe defects in about 12,000 children born in 46 countries
Fidel Castro releases, for $53 million in food and medicine, the Cuban exiles taken prisoner in the Bay of Pigs fiasco
British surgeon John Charnley pioneers the technique of joint replacement, giving a patient a new hip in a small hospital in Wrightington
Surgeons Michael Bakey in the USA and Vasilii Kolesov in the USSR pioneer coronary bypass surgery, using the patient's mammary artery
South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard, in Cape Town, transplants the heart of a young woman into a 55-year-old grocer, Louis Washkansky
British scientists Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards fertilize in a test-tube eggs removed from human ovaries
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment in Alabama becomes a major scandal after a whistle-blower reveals the details
Louise Brown, born in England, is the first test-tube baby, having been conceived by IVF (In vitro fertilization)
The Global Commission for the Eradication of Smallpox announces that the world is free of the disease
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is described for the first time in a US medical journal
The drug AZT (azidothymidine) offers hope as a way of inhibiting the progression from HIV to AIDS
The drug Viagra wins government approval in the USA as a treatment for male impotence
At the turn of the century, it is calculated that 36 million people worldwide are infected with the HIV virus
A deadly new form of pneumonia, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is first reported in Hanoi and soon spreads globally
Two years after its first appearance, the World Health Organization announces that the deadly disease SARS has been 'eradicated'
