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Timeline of medicine and medical technology

Timeline of medicine and medical technology

420 BC - Hippocrates begins the scientific study of medicine by maintaining that diseases have natural causes and puts forth the Hippocratic Oath, marking the birth of modern medicine
280 BC - Herophilus studies the nervous system and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves
250 BC - Erasistratus[?] studies the brain and distinguishes between the cerebrum[?] and cerebellum
50-70 - Pedanius Dioscorides writes De Materia Medica - a precursor of modern pharmacopeias that was in use for almost 1600 years
180 - Galen studies the connection between paralysis and severance of the spinal cord
1242 - Ibn an-Nafis[?] suggests that the right and left ventricles[?] of the heart are separate and describes the lesser circulation of blood
1249 - Roger Bacon writes about convex lens spectacles for treating long-sightedness[?]
1403 - Venice implements a quarantine against the Black Death
1451 - Nicholas of Cusa[?] invents concave lens spectacles to treat myopia
early 16th century: Paracelsus, an alchemist by trade, rejects occultism and pioneers the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine
1543 - Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes medicine
1546 - Girolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities
1553 - Miguel Serveto[?] describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs
1559 - Realdo Colombo[?] describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs in detail
1603 - Girolamo Fabrici[?] studies leg veins and notices that they have valves which only allow blood to flow toward the heart
1628 - William Harvey explains the vein-artery system and structure of the heart in De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis
1701 - Giacomo Pylarini[?] gives the first smallpox inoculations
1747 - James Lind discovers that citrus fruits prevent scurvy
1763 - Claudius Aymand[?] performs the first successful appendectomy
1790s - Samuel Hahnemann rages against the prevalent practice of bloodletting as a universal cure and founds homeopathy
1796 - Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination method
1800 - Humphry Davy announces the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide
1816 - Rene Laennec[?] invents the stethoscope
1842 - Crawford Long[?] performs the first surgical operation using anasthesia
1847 - Ignaz Semmelweis studies and prevents the transmission of puerperal fever[?]
1870 - Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease
1881 - Louis Pasteur develops an anthrax vaccine
1882 - Louis Pasteur develops a rabies vaccine
1890 - Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins[?] and uses them to develop tetanus and diptheria[?] vaccines
1906 - Frederick Hopkins[?] suggests the existence of vitamins and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes scurvy and rickets
1907 - Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness
1921 - Edward Mellanby[?] discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1932 - Gerhard Domagk[?] develops a chemotherapeutic cure for streptococcus
1952 - Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine

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