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Austrian-American Karl Landsteiner describes blood compatibility and rejection (i.e., what happens when a person receives a blood transfusion from another human of either compatible or incompatible blood type), developing the ABO system of blood typing. This system classifies the bloods of human beings into A, B, AB, and O groups. Landsteiner receives the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for this discovery.
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Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and concludes they are essential to health. Receives the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
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First successful human blood transfusion using Landsteiner's ABO blood typing technique
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Dr. Paul Dudley White becomes one of America's first cardiologists, a doctor specializing in the heart and its functions, and a pioneer in use of the electrocardiograph, exploring its potential as a diagnostic tool.
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Edward Mellanby discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets.
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Insulin first used to treat diabetes.
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First vaccine for diphtheria.
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First vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough).
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First vaccine for tetanus.
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Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. He shares the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Ernst Chain and Sir Howard Florey.
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First vaccine for yellow fever.
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Dr. John H. Gibbon, Jr. , successfully uses a heart-lung machine for extracorporeal circulation of a cat (i.e., all the heart and lung functions are handled by the machine while surgery is performed). Dr. Gibbon uses this method successfully on a human in 1953. It is now commonly used in open heart surgery.
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First vaccine for typhus.
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Bernard Fantus starts the first blood bank at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, using a 2% solution of sodium citrate to preserve the blood. Refrigerated blood lasts ten days.
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Microbiologist Selman A. Waksman discovers the antibiotic streptomycin, later used in the treatment of tuberculosis and other diseases.
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First vaccine for influenza.
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Paul Zoll develops the first cardiac pacemaker to control irregular heartbeat.
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James Watson and Francis Crick at Cambridge University describe the structure of the DNA molecule. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's College in London are also studying DNA. (Wilkins in fact shares Franklin's data with Watson and Crick without her knowledge.) Watson, Crick, and Wilkins share the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962 (Franklin had died and the Nobel Prize only goes to living recipients).
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Dr. Joseph E. Murray performs the first kidney transplant between identical twins.
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Jonas Salk develops the first polio.
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Dr. Willem Kolff and Dr. Tetsuzo Akutzu implant the first artificial heart in a dog. The animal survives 90 minutes.
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First oral polio vaccine (as an alternative to the injected vaccine).
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Firstvaccine for measles.
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First vaccine for mumps.
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South African heart surgeon Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant.
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First vaccine for chicken pox.
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First vaccine for pneumonia.
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First test-tube baby is born in the U.K.
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First vaccine for meningitis.
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W.H.O. (World Health Organization) announces smallpox is eradicated.
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First vaccine for hepatitis B.
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Dr. William DeVries implants the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into patient Barney Clark. Clark lives 112 days.
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HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is identified.
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First vaccine for hepatitis A.
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Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell (dies in 2003).
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First vaccine for lyme disease.
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Scientists discover how to use human skin cells to create embryonic stem cells.
