Medicine Timeline

1858: public health officials rail against “swill milk” that they say is poisoning children

1865: germ warfare terrorism in American cities—a doctor tries to spread yellow fever with infected bedding and clothing

1866: new code of health in New York requires reporting of infectious diseases, including smallpox

1882: Robert Koch finds the tuberculosis bacterium

1893: Caesarean operation performed

1896: X-rays discovered

1897: yellow fever epidemic in southern cities leads to quarantines

1904: X-rays said to cure a woman of breast cancer

1908: doctor claims to cure patients with a mix of toxins that act to stimulate immunity

1912: first cornea transplant

1914: surgery said to be the only cancer cure

1914: doctors say stomach ulcers may be infectious

1915: scientists treat diabetes by starving patients

1916: polio in New York said to have infected 10,000 and killed 2,500

1918: world’s worst flu epidemic reaches United States

1922: insulin is discovered, used to treat diabetes

1922: laughing gas used as anesthesia during labor and delivery

1937: lobotomies said to cure mental illness

1938: Typhoid Mary dies of a stroke

1940: electroshock used to treat depression

1940: first measles vaccine

1941: penicillin discovered to be powerful antibiotic

1942: first blood pressure drug, chlorothiazide, found to be effective

1943: life insurance company issues tables of ideal heights and weights for men and women and says that as people go above those weights they are less healthy and their lives are shortened

1945: spinal block anesthesia used in labor and delivery

1945: new antibiotic, streptomycin, cures typhoid for the first time

1947: Nazi trials reveal medical experiments that horrify the world

1950: first kidney transplant

1952: first use of a heart-lung machine

1952: birth control pills found to prevent pregnancy

1953: Salk vaccine for polio can prevent the disease

1953: Watson and Crick announce structure of DNA, a double helix

1955: first schizophrenia drugs found effective

1959: drug for depression, Nardil, being tested

1959: U.S. Surgeon General says smoking and cancer are linked

1962: dialysis machine used to save lives of patients with kidney failure

1962: thalidomide’s effects reported—babies being born with stumps for arms and legs

1965: first report of mammography finding cancers

1965: bariatric surgery helps obese people lose weight

1965: report on unethical medical studies in the United States shakes medical establishment

1966: obesity deemed a major health problem

1968: new category, brain death, proposed to enable organ donation for transplants

1969: first bypass surgery

1971: surgeons question mainstay of breast cancer treatment—radical mastectomy

1972: revelation that U.S. government left poor black men with syphilis untreated as part of a medical experiment in Tuskegee

1974: U.S. government issues rules for protection of human subjects

1974: colonoscopy used to view colon and remove polyps, which can be precursors of colon cancer

1975: CT scanner developed

1977: smallpox eradicated from the earth

1978: doctors in England report birth of first IVF baby

1981: first report of an unusual cancer in gay men; it will eventually become known as a symptom of AIDS

1981: discovery of cause of a cholesterol disorder—finding will lead to development of statins

1981: hepatitis B vaccine is approved by the F.D.A.

1982: a dentist, Barney Clark, receives first artificial heart

1984: AIDS virus isolated

1984: Australian researchers link bacterium to stomach ulcers

1986: first evidence that a drug, AZT, can help treat HIV

1987: first statin approved

1990: three years after it was introduced, Prozac becomes the most widely prescribed antidepressant

1991: gene mutation that causes Alzheimer’s found—first opening to understand the disease

1992: a four-drug combination can kill bacteria causing stomach ulcers and cure almost all patients

1993: mammograms questioned for women under age 50

1995: mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s—will allow testing of drugs and ideas of the disease’s genesis

1997: first cloned mammal, the sheep named Dolly

1997: the 1918 flu virus is reconstructed from shards found in preserved tissue

1998: human embryonic stem cells isolated

2000: completion of mapping of human genome

2001: routine cancer screening tests questioned, issues of whether they are saving lives

2004: opening arteries with angioplasty and stents is found not to protect against heart attacks

2005: National Cancer Institute plans to sequence the genomes of the most common cancers

2005: lowest death rates among the overweight, not those of normal weight

2005: first face transplant

2007: scientists find a way to generate embryonic stem cells without using embryos

2011: Institute of Medicine says there is no link between vaccines and autism

2012: one in 88 American children said to have an autism spectrum disorder

2012: Human Microbiome project announces first results of study of the 100 trillion bacteria that live in people

2014: first Ebola cases treated in United States