HM Historia Medica History of medicine, examined.

History in motion

Timeline

22 turning points
c. 1550 BCE—1978

Turning points in medical history

  1. c. 1550 BCEKnowledge & ideas

    The Ebers Papyrus

    Egyptian remedies, diagnoses, and incantations preserved on a single extraordinary scroll.

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  2. c. 450–350 BCEKnowledge & ideas

    The Hippocratic Corpus

    Observation, prognosis, and natural explanation become durable habits of medical writing.

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  3. c. 160–200 CEKnowledge & ideas

    Galen’s Medical Synthesis

    Anatomy, philosophy, and therapeutics converge in a system that travels across languages and centuries.

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  4. c. 370sInstitutions & society

    The First Public Hospitals

    Organised charitable care links religion, civic life, poverty relief, and medical institutions.

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  5. c. 750–900Knowledge & ideas

    Baghdad’s Translation Movement

    Multilingual scholars translate, critique, and extend Greek medicine in Syriac and Arabic.

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  6. c. 1025Knowledge & ideas

    Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine

    A vast, teachable synthesis of physiology, diagnosis, drugs, disease, and treatment.

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  7. 1594Institutions & society

    The Anatomy Theatre of Padua

    Dissection becomes an organised university practice, public lesson, and architectural spectacle.

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  8. 1628Discovery

    The Circulation of the Blood

    William Harvey recasts the heart as a pump driving blood through a continuous circuit.

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  9. 1796Diseases & public health

    Smallpox Vaccination

    Edward Jenner’s experiment helps make prevention a central medical and political project.

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  10. 1816Technology & instruments

    The Stethoscope

    René Laennec turns listening into a formal, instrument-guided diagnostic practice.

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  11. 1846Treatments & inventions

    Ether Anaesthesia

    Pain relief makes longer, more deliberate operations newly possible.

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  12. 1847Diseases & public health

    Semmelweis and Handwashing

    Chlorinated handwashing exposes hospital routine as a source of deadly contamination.

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  13. 1860Institutions & society

    Nightingale Training School

    Nursing becomes a trained discipline bound to sanitation, ward order, and reform.

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  14. 1867Treatments & inventions

    Antiseptic Surgery

    Joseph Lister makes infection control central to the operating theatre.

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  15. 1895Technology & instruments

    The Discovery of X-Rays

    The living body becomes visible from within without an incision.

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  16. 1903Technology & instruments

    The Electrocardiogram

    The heart’s electrical activity becomes a recorded and interpretable trace.

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  17. 1921Treatments & inventions

    Insulin Therapy

    Diabetes changes from a near-certain fatal disease into a manageable condition.

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  18. 1928Treatments & inventions

    Penicillin

    Antibiotic therapy transforms the treatment of bacterial infection.

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  19. 1948Institutions & society

    World Health Organization

    International public health gains a permanent home within the United Nations system.

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  20. 1955Diseases & public health

    The Salk Polio Vaccine

    Mass immunisation joins virology, clinical trials, manufacturing, and public trust.

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  21. 1967Treatments & inventions

    The First Heart Transplant

    Organ replacement brings donors, brain death, rejection, and surgical fame into public debate.

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  22. 1978Treatments & inventions

    The First IVF Birth

    Louise Brown’s birth reshapes infertility treatment and reproductive ethics.

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Map of medicine through time

Discover where medicine changed the world.

Travel across continents to connect the people, places, discoveries, and institutions behind medical history.

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48 published records