While you wait
Fascinating things about medicine
True stories from medical history — the kind you might want to tell a friend. A short quiz is at the bottom. This is for curiosity, not personal medical advice.
1796
The word “vaccine” comes from a cow
Edward Jenner showed that exposure to cowpox could protect people from smallpox. The word vaccine comes from vacca, the Latin word for cow. Smallpox later became the first human disease wiped out worldwide, which the World Health Organization declared in 1980.
1816
The stethoscope began as a rolled-up tube of paper
French physician René Laennec wanted a more discreet way to listen to the chest than placing his ear directly on the patient. He rolled a sheet of paper into a tube, heard the heart more clearly, and invented the stethoscope — still a symbol of the exam room today.
1840s
A doctor was mocked for asking colleagues to wash their hands
In a Vienna maternity clinic, Ignaz Semmelweis saw that when doctors washed their hands with a chlorine solution, far fewer new mothers died of childbed fever. Many of his peers rejected the idea. Hand hygiene is now one of the most basic, life-saving habits in medicine.
1846
Surgery before ether was often endured awake
On October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, William T. G. Morton publicly demonstrated ether anesthesia so a patient could undergo surgery without the agony that had been routine. The operating theater where it happened is still known as the Ether Dome.
1901
Blood types made transfusion safely possible
Karl Landsteiner discovered that human blood belongs to different groups. Mixing the wrong types can be dangerous; matching them made modern blood transfusion possible. He received the Nobel Prize in 1930.
1921–22
Insulin turned a fatal disease into a treatable one
At the University of Toronto, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip and J.J.R. Macleod isolated insulin. In 1922 it was given to a 14-year-old boy, Leonard Thompson. Before insulin, type 1 diabetes was usually a quickly fatal illness. The work was recognized with the 1923 Nobel Prize.
1928
Penicillin started with a messy laboratory plate
Alexander Fleming noticed that a mold, Penicillium, had killed bacteria on a culture plate he had left out. Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and colleagues later turned that observation into a usable medicine, ushering in the antibiotic era. Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize.
1967
The first heart transplant surprised the world
On December 3, 1967, Christiaan Barnard and his team at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town performed the first successful human-to-human heart transplant. The patient, Louis Washkansky, lived 18 days. The operation opened a new chapter in surgery and organ donation.
1982–2005
Ulcers were not “just stress”
Barry Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori causes most peptic ulcers, which had long been blamed on stress and spicy food. Marshall famously drank a culture of the bacteria to help prove it. They received the 2005 Nobel Prize, and ulcer treatment changed.
About 100,000
Your heart works through the night
At a resting rate of about 70 beats a minute, a typical adult heart beats roughly 100,000 times a day — and more than 35 million times a year — without a pause for sleep. It is one of the most extraordinary ordinary facts in the human body.
These stories are for curiosity and conversation. They are not a diagnosis or personal medical advice. If you have a question about your own health, ask your doctor. In an emergency, call 911.
A short quiz
Six questions from the stories above. See how many you can get — then tell someone the one that surprised you.
- World Health Organization: Smallpox, including eradication in 1980
- Nobel Prize: The discovery of insulin (1923)
- Nobel Prize: Penicillin (1945)
- Nobel Prize: Karl Landsteiner and blood groups (1930)
- Nobel Prize: Helicobacter pylori and peptic ulcer disease (2005)
- Massachusetts General Hospital: The Ether Dome, 1846
- Science Museum (UK): The invention of the stethoscope
- A historical review of Ignaz Semmelweis and hand hygiene
- South African History Online: The first human heart transplant, 3 December 1967
Ready for your visit?
When you are done browsing, you can book on Zocdoc or call us. The phone line is answered 24/7.
