August 17 in Medical History
16 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- People's Bath, the first public bathhouse with showers, opens in New York City
- First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California
- First case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in NYC (9-year-old Bronx boy)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill becomes the first US college to send students home and convert to online classes after 135 COVID-19 cases are detected
- One in five US hospital ICUs is at or over 95% capacity due to the Delta surge of COVID-19, with 1,800 children hospitalized
- First WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit begins in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
Born on this day
- Jules Bernard LuysFrench neurologist, made advances in neuroanatomy and neuropsychiatry (subthalamic nucleus), born in Paris (d. 1897)
- Henry Cadwalader ChapmanAmerican physician and naturalist (died 1909)
- Frederick F. RussellAmerican army physician, developed 1st successful typhoid fever vaccine, born in Auburn, New York (d. 1960)
- John A. SampsonAmerican gynecologist, studied and coined the word endometriosis, born in Troy, New York (d. 1946)
- Pieter van der HoogDutch bacteriologist, dermatologist, and Islamicist (died 1957)
- Moses MajekodunmiNigerian physician and politician (died 2012)
- Jean WilsonBritish disability campaigner and co-founder of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (Sightsavers), born in Acton, England (d. 2026)
- Robert ThirskCanadian astronaut (STS 78), born in New Westminster, British Columbia
Died on this day
- Regnier de GraafDutch physician and anatomist, dies of possible suicide at 32
- Philip BlaibergSouth African dentist, third person to receive an artificial heart, dies after 19 days at 59