Pioneers of Medicine

Nicholas Culpeper: English Physician

1652

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper
Nicholas Culpeper published Complete Herbal, a book on herbal pharmaceutical medicine, at a time when very little was known about hygiene and medical care. Due to his publication, herbal treatments reached peak popularity in England. Many of his prescriptions were effective at treating ailments.

William Smellie: English Obstetrician

1752

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-18th-century
William Smellie published Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery in 3 volumes from 1752-1764. His work became very well known, and even included the safe use of obstetric forceps, which ended up saving hundreds of lives. Smellie helped obstetrics become recognized as an established medical practice.

Edward Jenner: Vaccination

1796

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-18th-century
Jenner studied inoculation and successfully found a way to prevent smallpox through injecting cowpox (smallpox in cows) into a patient's arm. After injecting the same patient with smallpox, he discovered they did not contract smallpox. His procedure of vaccination is responsible for permanently getting rid of smallpox.

Rene Laennec: The Stethoscope

1819

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-18th-century
Laennec was a French physician who invented the first simple stethoscope. Upon this invention, he published "On Mediate Auscultation" and described the various sounds and movements made by the heart and lungs that could be heard through the instrument.

Johannes Muller: Human Physiology

1833

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-18th-century
Muller was a German physiologist who studied the microscopic structures and physiological functions of the human body. He established the science of physiology as a significant study through the publication of "Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen" (Manual of Human Physiology), which became widely famous.

Claude Bernard: French Physiologist

1865

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-18th-century
Bernard was considered to be the most brilliant physiologist of his time. His research accurately discovered the role of the pancreas during digestion, glycogen in the liver, and vasomotor nerves controlling the expanding and contracting of blood vessels. He published "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine", which is still relevant for research today.

Robert Koch: Bacteriology

1882

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Verification-of-the-germ-theory
Koch was a German physician with extensive research studies in bacteriology. He showed that bacteria could be grown, isolated, and examined in a laboratory. He found the organisms that produced tuberculosis in 1882, and the organisms that produced cholera in 1883. Due to his work, many other disease inducing microorganisms were found.

Alexander Fleming: Penicillin

1928

https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-medicine/Medicine-in-the-20th-century
The discovery of Penicillin is one of the most significant moments in medical history. When experimenting with the Staph infection, Fleming noticed the growth of a random mold inhibiting the growth of the infection. After testing, he found it to be a strain of Penicillum P. notatum, the name of the bacteria now known as the common medication Penicillin.

Paul Charpentier: Antipsychotics

1954

https://www.mdlinx.com/article/greatest-medical-discoveries-in-the-past-100-years/lfc-4248
Charpentier, a chemist, synthesized a drug known as chlorpromazine to treat psychosis. The effects of the drug were very prominent, and two short years later, numbers of inmates in mental asylums significantly dropped. Antipsychotics and antidepressants became increasingly popular after chlorpromazine, and were the chosen treatment for mental illnesses.