This is a timeline of the history of medicine and medical technology.
Antiquity
- c. 12000 BC â The earliest known example of dental caries manipulation is found in a Paleolithic man in Northern Italy.
- 7300 - 6200 BC â First evidence of trepanation, with signs of healing suggesting survival, identified in a skull in Ukraine.
- 3350 - 3105 BC - ÃÂtzi dies with a parasitic whipworm infection while carrying Piptoporus betulinus, a type of birch fungus that contains toxic resins against whipworm and induces diarrhea. It has been likely used an anthelmintic medication.
- 3000 BC â The origins of Ayurveda traced back to around 3,000 BCE.
- c. 2600 BC â Imhotep the priest-physician to be later deified as the Egyptian god of medicine.
- 2500 BC â Egyptian inscription speaks of Iry as eye-doctor of the palace, palace physician of the belly, guardian of the royal bowels, and he who prepares the important medicine (name cannot be translated) and knows the inner juices of the body.
- 1900âÂÂ1600 BC Akkadian clay tablets on medicine survive primarily as copies from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh.
- 1800 BC â Code of Hammurabi sets out fees for surgeons and punishments for malpractice
- 1800 BC â Kahun Gynecological Papyrus
- 1600 BC â Hearst papyrus, coprotherapy and magic
- 1551 BC â Ebers Papyrus, coprotherapy and magic
- 1500 BC â Saffron used as a medicine on the Aegean island of Thera in ancient Greece
- 1500 BC â Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text and the oldest known surgical treatise (no true surgery) no magic
- 1300 BC â Brugsch Papyrus and London Medical Papyrus
- 1250 BC â Asklepios
- 9th century â Hesiod reports an ontological conception of disease via the Pandora myth. Disease has a "life" of its own but is of divine origin.
- 8th century â Homer tells that Polydamna supplied the Greek forces besieging Troy with healing drugs. Homer also tells about battlefield surgery Idomeneus tells Nestor after Machaon has fallen: A surgeon who can cut out an arrow and heal the wound with his ointments is worth a regiment.
- 700 BC â Cnidos medical school; also one at Cos
- 500 BC â Darius I orders the restoration of the House of Life (First record of a (much older) medical school)
- 500 BC â Bian Que becomes the earliest physician known to use acupuncture and pulse diagnosis
- 500 BC â The Sushruta Samhita is published, laying the framework for Ayurvedic medicine, giving many surgical procedures for first time such as lithotomy, forehead flap rhinoplasty, otoplasty and many more.
- â â Empedocles four elements
- 500 BC â Pills are used. They have been presumably invented so that measured amounts of a medicinal substance could be delivered to a patient.
- 510âÂÂ430 BC â Alcmaeon of Croton scientific anatomic dissections. He studies the optic nerves and the brain, arguing that the brain was the seat of the senses and intelligence. He distinguishes veins from the arteries and has at least vague understanding of the circulation of the blood. Variously described by modern scholars as Father of Anatomy; Father of Physiology; Father of Embryology; Father of Psychology; Creator of Psychiatry; Founder of Gynecology; and as the Father of Medicine itself. There is little evidence to support the claims but he is, nonetheless, important.
- fl. 425 BC â Diogenes of Apollonia
- â 425 BC â Herodotus tells us Egyptian doctors were specialists: Medicine is practiced among them on a plan of separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more. Thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure diseases of the eye, others of the head, others again of the teeth, others of the intestines, and some those which are not local.
- 496 â 405 BC â Sophocles "It is not a learned physician who sings incantations over pains which should be cured by cutting."
- 420 BC â Hippocrates of Cos maintains that diseases have natural causes and puts forth the Hippocratic Oath. Origin of rational medicine.
Medicine after Hippocrates
After Galen 200 AD
- â Fabulla or Fabylla, medical writer
- d. 260 â Gargilius Martialis, short Latin handbook on Medicines from Vegetables and Fruits
- 4th century Magnus of Nisibis, Alexandrian doctor and professor book on urine
- 325 â 400 â Oribasius 70 volume encyclopedia
- 362 â Julian orders xenones built, imitating Christian charity (proto hospitals)
- 369 â Basil of Caesarea founded at Caesarea in Cappadocia an institution (hospital) called Basileias, with several buildings for patients, nurses, physicians, workshops, and schools
- 375 â Ephrem the Syrian open a hospital at Edessa They spread out and specialized nosocomia for the sick, brephotrophia for foundlings, orphanotrophia for orphans, ptochia for the poor, xenodochia for poor or infirm pilgrims, and gerontochia for the old.
- 400 â The first hospital in Latin Christendom is founded by Fabiola at Rome
- 420 â Caelius Aurelianus a doctor from Sicca Veneria (El-Kef, Tunisia) handbook On Acute and Chronic Diseases in Latin.
- 447 â Cassius Felix of Cirta (Constantine, Ksantina, Algeria), medical handbook drew on Greek sources, Methodist and Galenist in Latin
- 480 â 547 Benedict of Nursia founder of "monastic medicine"
- 484 â 590 â Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus
- fl. 511 â 534 â Anthimus Greek: á¼ÂýøùüÿÃÂ
- 536 â Sergius of Reshaina (died 536) â A Christian theologian-physician who translated thirty-two of Galen's works into Syriac and wrote medical treatises of his own
- 525 â 605 â Alexander of Tralles Alexander Trallianus
- 500 â 550 â Aetius of Amida Encyclopedia 4 books each divided into 4 sections
- second half of 6th century building of xenodocheions/bimÃÂrestÃÂns by the Nestorians under the Sasanians, would evolve into the complex secular "Islamic hospital", which combined lay practice and Galenic teaching
- 550 â 630 Stephanus of Athens
- 560 â 636 â Isidore of Seville
- c. 620 Aaron of Alexandria Syriac writes 30 books on medicine, the "Pandects". He is the first author in antiquity who mentions the diseases of smallpox and measles translated by MÃÂsarjawaih a Syrian Jew and Physician, into Arabic about A. D. 683
- c. 630 â Paul of Aegina Encyclopedia in 7 books very detailed surgery used by Albucasis
- 790 â 869 â Leo Itrosophist also Mathematician or Philosopher wrote "Epitome of Medicine"
- c. 800 â 873 â Al-Kindi (Alkindus) De Gradibus
- 820 â Benedictine hospital founded, School of Salerno would grow around it
- d. 857 â Mesue the elder (YÃ
«á¸¥annàibn MÃÂsawayh) Syriac Christian
- c. 830 â 870 â Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Johannitius) Syriac-speaking Christian also knows Greek and Arabic. Translator and author of several medical tracts.
- c. 838 â 870 â Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, writes an encyclopedia of medicine in Arabic.
- c. 910d â Ishaq ibn Hunayn
- 9th century â Yahya ibn Sarafyun a Syriac physician Johannes Serapion, Serapion the Elder
- c. 865 â 925 â Rhazes pediatrics, and makes the first clear distinction between smallpox and measles in his al-Hawi.
- d. 955 â Isaac Judaeus IsḥÃÂq ibn SulaymÃÂn al-IsrÃÂþëlë Egyptian born Jewish physician
- 913 â 982 â Shabbethai Donnolo alleged founding father of School of Salerno writes in Hebrew
- d. 982 â 994 â 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi Haly Abbas
- 1000 â Albucasis (936âÂÂ1018) surgery Kitab al-Tasrif, surgical instruments.
- d. 1075 â Ibn Butlan Christian physician of Baghdad Tacuinum sanitatis the Arabic original and most of the Latin copies, are in tabular format
- 1018 â 1087 â Michael Psellos or Psellus a Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician and historian. several books on medicine
- c. 1030 â Avicenna The Canon of Medicine The Canon remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European universities until the 18th century.
- c. 1071 â 1078 â Simeon Seth or Symeon Seth an 11th-century Jewish Byzantine translates Arabic works into Greek
- 1084 â First documented hospital in England Canterbury
- d. 1087 â Constantine the African
- 1083 â 1153 â Anna Komnene, Latinized as Comnena
- 1095 â Congregation of the Antonines, is founded to treat victims of "St. Anthony's fire" a skin disease.
- Late 11th or early 12th century â Trotula
- 1123 â St Bartholomew's Hospital founded by the court jester Rahere Augustine nuns originally cared for the patients. Mental patients were accepted along with others
- 1127 â Stephen of Antioch translates the work of Haly Abbas
- 1100 â 1161 â Avenzoar Teacher of Averroes
- 1170 â Rogerius Salernitanus composes his Chirurgia also known as The Surgery of Roger
- 1126 â 1198 â Averroes
- d. c. 1161 â Matthaeus Platearius
1200âÂÂ1499
1500âÂÂ1699
- Early 16th century:
- Paracelsus, an alchemist by trade, rejects occultism and pioneers the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. Burns the books of Avicenna, Galen and Hippocrates.
- Hieronymus Fabricius His "Surgery" is mostly that of Celsus, Paul of Aegina, and Abulcasis citing them by name.
- Caspar Stromayr
- 1500? â 1561 Pierre Franco
- Ambroise Paré (1510âÂÂ1590) pioneers the treatment of gunshot wounds.
- Bartholomeo Maggi at Bologna, Felix Wurtz of Zurich, Léonard Botal in Paris, and the Englishman Thomas Gale (surgeon), (the diversity of their geographical origins attests to the widespread interest of surgeons in the problem), all published works urging similar treatment to Paré's. But it was Paré's writings which were the most influential.
- 1518 â College of Physicians founded, now known as Royal College of Physicians of London is a British professional body of doctors of general medicine and its subspecialties. It received the royal charter in 1518
- 1510 â 1590 â Ambroise Paré surgeon
- 1540 â 1604 â William Clowes â Surgical chest for military surgeons
- 1543 â Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes European medicine
- 1546 â Girolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities
- 1550 â 1612 â Peter Lowe
- 1553 â Miguel Servet describes the circulation of blood through the lungs.
- 1556 â Amato Lusitano describes venous valves in the ÃÂzigos vein
- 1559 â Realdo Colombo describes the circulation of blood through the lungs in detail
- 1563 â Garcia de Orta founds tropical medicine with his treatise on Indian diseases and treatments
- 1570 â 1643 â John Woodall Ship surgeons use lemon juice to treat scurvy wrote "The Surgions Mate"
- 1590 â Microscope is invented, which played a huge part in medical advancement
- 1596 â Li Shizhen publishes BÃÂncÃÂo GÃÂngmù or Compendium of Materia Medica
- 1603 â Girolamo Fabrici studies leg veins and notices that they have valves which allow blood to flow only toward the heart
- 1621 â 1676 â Richard Wiseman
- 1628 â William Harvey explains the circulatory system in Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus
- 1683 â 1758 â Lorenz Heister
- 1688 â 1752 â William Cheselden
18th century
19th century
20th century
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
- 1990 â Gamow bagî â Igor Gamow
- 1992 â Description of Brugada syndrome (Pedro and Josep Brugada)
- 1992 â First vaccine for hepatitis A available
- 1992 â Electroactive polymers (artificial muscle) â SRI International
- 1992 â Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) â Andre van Steirteghem
- 1995 â Adult stem cell use in regeneration of tissues and organs in vivo â B. G Matapurkar U.S . International Patent
- 1996 â Dolly the Sheep cloned
- 1998 â Stem cell therapy â James Thomson
- 1999 â The hormone Ghrelin is identified by Japanese scientists Masayasu Kojima, Kenji Kangawa and their colleagues.
21st century
2000s
2010s
2020s
See also
Notes
Citations
Reference:
- 1. International patent USA. .wef 1995. US PTO no.6227202 and 20020007223.
- 2. R. Maingot's Text Book of Abdominal operations.1997 USA.
- 3. Text book of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2010 J P Publishers.
References
Matapurkar B G. (1995). US international Patent 6227202 and 20020007223.medical use of Adult Stem cells. A new physiological phenomenon of Desired Metaplasia for regeneration of tissues and organs in vivo. Annals of NYAS 1998.
- Bynum, W. F. and Roy Porter, eds. Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (2 vol. 1997); 1840pp; 72 long essays by scholars excerpt and text search
- Conrad, Lawrence I. et al. The Western Medical Tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800 (1995); excerpt and text search
- Bynum, W.F. et al. The Western Medical Tradition: 1800âÂÂ2000 (2006) excerpt and text search
- Loudon, Irvine, ed. Western Medicine: An Illustrated History (1997) online
- McGrew, Roderick. Encyclopedia of Medical History (1985)
- Porter, Roy, ed. The Cambridge History of Medicine (2006); 416pp; excerpt and text search
- Porter, Roy, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine (2001) excerpt and text search excerpt and text search
- Singer, Charles, and E. Ashworth Underwood. A Short History of Medicine (2nd ed. 1962)
- Watts, Sheldon. Disease and Medicine in World History (2003), 166pp online
Further reading
External links