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Period: 500 to Dec 31, 1299
Middle Ages
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Sep 2, 820
First Medical School
The first medical school, the School of Salerno was established around the Benedictine hospital in Italy. -
Aug 31, 900
Rhazes
Discovered difference between smallpox and measles -
Sep 2, 1020
Abu'l Qusim Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili
Iraqi ophthalmologist, al-Mawsili used a suction technique to remove a cataract, marking the first successful eye surgery. -
Sep 2, 1095
Congregation of the Antonines
The Congregation of the Antonines was founded to treat those suffering from ergotism. -
Sep 2, 1123
Rahere
Court jester Rahere founded the Priory of the Hospital of St Bartholomew in London in 1123. -
Period: Jan 1, 1300 to
Renaissance
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Sep 2, 1300
Concave Lens Spectacles
Concave lens spectacles to treat myopia developed in Italy. -
Sep 5, 1526
Public Burning of Ancient Books
Paracelsus openly acted defiant against the existing medical world by publicly burning medicial books, rejecting the use of occultism and the paranormal in medicine. -
Sep 2, 1543
Andreas Vesalius
Vesalius published the De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, which was a major advance in the history of anatomy, which also corrected previous Greek works of medicine. -
Sep 2, 1546
Girolamo Fracastoro
Fracastoro suggested that epidemic diseases are cause by transfer of small, seedlike entitities. -
Sep 2, 1553
Miguel Serveto
Serveto was accused of heresy and burned at the stake for suggesting that blood circulated through the lungs. -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
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Claudius Amyand
Amyand was a French-English surgeon who performed the first successful appendectomy in recorded history. -
Joseph Priestley
Priestly was an English theologian who first discovered oxygen and ammonia. -
René Laennec
French physician René Laennec is known for inventing the stethoscope used for diagnosing chest problems. -
Painless Surgery
The first painless surgery was performed with the use of general anesthetic. -
The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania
The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania became the first medical school that trained women and offered them medical degrees. It was later named the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. -
Joseph Lister
Lister was a British surgeon who pioneered the use of antiseptics in surgery and became the father of modern surgery. -
Period: to
Modern World
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Tuberculosis Vaccine
The first vaccine for tuberculosis created by Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin was first used on humans in 1921. -
Penicillin
Alexander Flemming accidentally discovered penicillin when he set his cultures of staph out in his laboratory. It grew a fungus that destroyed all of the staph bacteria. -
António Egas Moniz
Moniz discovered the use of prefrontal lobotomy to treat certain mental disorders. -
Chemotherapy
Alfred Gilman and Louis Goodman discovered chemotherapy as a way to treat cancer. -
CPR
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is invented. -
First Full Face Transplant
The first full face transplant was performed in Spain on a man who accidentally shot himself in the face. -
First Telesurgery
Jacques Marescaux performed the first telesurgery. This is where the surgeon is not physically at the location, and uses a robotic surgery machine to perform it. This was called the Lindbergh Operation.
