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1377 BCE
Quarantine
Keeping groups of people apart so that disease could not spread. It began in the aftermath of the Black Death. In the year 1377 the city of Ragusa (now known as Dubrovnik) issued orders to combat the plague that included making arriving ships wait 30 days in the harbour before docking, so that authorities could be sure no one was infected. -
Period: 1300 BCE to 1600 BCE
Rennaissance
The Renaissance is a period in European history, covering the span between the 14th and 17th centuries and marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity -
Period: 476 BCE to 1492 BCE
The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages was a period of European history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (5th century) to the fall of Constantinople (1453), or, more narrowly, from c. 1100 to 1453. -
460
Kos Greece (Hippocrates)
Birth of Hippocrates, Greek physician and founder of the first university. Considered the father of medicine. Hippocrates bases medicine on objective observation and deductive reasoning, although he does accept the commonly held belief that disease results from an imbalance of the four bodily humors (an idea that persists for centuries). -
Jan 1, 754
Pharamcies
As one medieval Arabic physician said these were places for the art of knowing the materia medica simples in their various species, types and shapes. The pharmacist prepares compounded medications as prescribed and ordered by the prescribing physician. -
Jan 1, 910
Smallpox
Persian physician Rhazes is the first to identify smallpox, as distinguished from measles, and to suggest blood as the cause of infectious disease. -
Jan 1, 1200
Ophthalmology and optics
Ancient writers believed that humans could see things through invisible beams of light that were being emanated from the eyes. Medieval Arabic physicians were also notable for their advances in the area of ophthalmology, including the invention of the first syringe, which was used to extract a cataract from the eye. -
Jan 1, 1500
Human Anatomy
Armed with a much better understanding of the human anatomy, doctors and physicians were able to get rid of old medical techniques that harmed the body rather than cured it. Such harmful medical procedures included bloodletting, which involved the draining of blood from someone’s vein to “rebalance” the body humors. -
Jan 1, 1578
William Harvey
William Harvey was a doctor in England. He became the first doctor to ever describe properly how the human circulatory system properly worked. He also described the blood properties and how the heart worked to circulate the blood around the body. He died in 1567. -
The microscope
Dutch lens grinder Zacharius Jannssen invents the microscope. -
Diseases and Epidemics
During the Renaissance period, common diseases included leprosy, smallpox and the dreaded Black Death. The Black Death troubled people from time to time. It was a very dangerous disease.
Before explorers from Spain sailed to the Americas, diseases such as measles, smallpox and the deadly influenza were unheard of there. As a result, the American Natives were not immune to such diseases. These diseases were therefore very deadly to them. -
Treatments
Many home remedies were handed down through generations from mother to daughter. Girls learned how to mix up remedies, using ingredients such as honey, which we now know kills bacteria. More people were writing down home remedies because more people could now read and write. -
Period: to
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840 -
Edward Jenner
He develops a method to protect people from smallpox by exposing them to the cowpox virus. In his famous experiment, he rubs pus from a dairymaid's cowpox postule into scratches on the arm of his gardener's 8-year-old son, and then exposes him to smallpox six weeks later (which he does not develop). The process becomes known as vaccination from the Latin vacca for cow. Vaccination with cowpox is made compulsory in Britain in 1853. Jenner is sometimes called the founding father of immunology. -
Being calm and relaxed
Anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, although dentists do not begin using the gas as an anesthetic for almost 45 years. -
Stethoscope
The inventing of the stethoscope. -
Tranfusion
British obstetrician James Blundell performs the first successful transfusion of human blood. -
Anesthetics
American surgeon Crawford W. Long uses ether as a general anesthetic during surgery but does not publish his results. Credit goes to dentist William Morton. -
Period: to
Modern World
Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the linear, global, historiographical approach to the time frame after post-classical history. -
Blood transfusion
First successful human blood transfusion using Landsteiner's ABO blood typing technique -
Edward Mellanby
Newly discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets. -
Diphtheria
First vaccine for diphtheria. -
Yellow fever
First vaccine for yellow fever. -
Cardiac Peacemaker
Paul Zoll develops the first cardiac pacemaker to control irregular heartbeat. -
Period: to
21st century
The 21st century is the current century of the Anno Domini era or Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. It began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the 3rd millennium. -
Mini liver
A "mini-liver"—the size of a small coin—is generated from human cord blood stem cells by doctors at Newcastle University, U.K. -
Human cells
Scientists discover how to use human skin cells to create embryonic stem cells. -
FDA
The FDA approves the first human clinical trials in the United States for a wearable artificial kidney designed by Blood Purification Technologies Inc. out of Beverly Hills, California. -
DNA
In March, DNA from an extinct woolly mammoth is spliced into that of an elephant. Scientists then successfully use the "revived" DNA to sequence the mammoth's complete genome. -
John Hopkins
The success of an first-time experimental surgery will determine future availability for U.S. cancer patients and veterans with injuries to the pelvic region. On May 8, 2016, a man named Thomas Manning is the first man to receive a penis transplant at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Manning's recovery from the surgery is going well; John Hopkins University School of Medicine is also hoping to start providing the surgery soon.
