April 15 in Medical History
26 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- Father Damien Day (Hawaii)
Events
- Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics
- Lincoln Hospital in Bronx. New York loses its accreditation
- Measles cases jump 300% in first three months of 2019, according to World Health Organization, largest rise in Africa (700%) with 800 deaths in Madagascar
- Revised death count for New York taking into account assumed COVID-19 deaths makes the city's per-capita death rate higher than Italy at 10,367 at this date
- US's deadliest day during COVID-19 pandemic with 2,752 deaths reported
- "The failed response in Brazil has caused a humanitarian catastrophe" reports Dr. Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders, as country records a quarter of world's COVID-19 deaths in last week
- India record over 200,000 (200,739) daily new cases of COVID-19 for the first time with 1,038 deaths amid massive second wave
- Sandstorm puts at least 3,700 people in hospitals with breathing difficulties, and two airports suspend flights due to poor visibility in central and southern Iraq
Born on this day
- Robert Lefkowitz1943 American physician (Nobel Prize for Chemistry), born in New York City (83 years old)
- Robert SibbaldScottish physician, born in Edinburgh (d. 1722)
- William CullenScottish physician and chemist, born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland (d. 1790)
- Walter ChanningAmerican physician who was the first to use anesthesia during childbirth, born in Newport, Rhode Island (d. 1876)
- Jean Pierre FlourensFrench physiologist, born in Maureilhan, France (d. 1867)
- Mary Harris Thompson1st American woman surgeon, born in Fort Ann, New York (d. 1895)
- Thomas SzaszHungarian-American psychiatrist (The Myth of Mental Illness, The Manufacture of Madness), born in Budapest, Hungary (d. 2012)
- Angelo DiGeorgeAmerican physician and endocrinologist (died 2009)
- Tomas TranströmerSwedish poet (Nobel Prize for Literature - 2011), born in Stockholm (d. 2015)
- Robert LefkowitzAmerican physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- Cristina Husmark PehrssonSwedish politician, born in Uddevalla, Sweden
- Sarah TeichmannGerman-American biophysicist and immunologist
- James MiddletonEnglish entrepreneur, mental health advocate, and younger brother of Catherine the Princess of Wales, born in Reading, England
Died on this day
- Karl Ludwig KahlbaumGerman psychiatrist (pioneer in classifying mental health), dies at 70
- Jane DelanoAmerican nurse and educator (Red Cross Nursing Service during WWI), dies at 57
- Robert RitterGerman child psychologist who classified the Roma and Sinti populations for persecution under the Third Reich, dies at 49
- Bilquis EdhiPakistani philanthropist and wife of Abdul Sattar Edhi (born 1947)