August 23 in Medical History
19 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- National Day for Physicians (Iran)
Events
- British "Free" guitarist Paul Kossoff is revived after a heart attack but dies in 1976
- Actor Larry Hagman receives a liver transplant
- English IndyCar driver Justin Wilson suffers a head injury during a race crash at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania
- India's toll from swine flu rises above 1,000 for the year, with 22,186 cases reported
- Nearly 60 million people in the Indus Valley, Pakistan, are at risk from arsenic, according to research published in "Science Advances"
- US Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 16 and over, the first vaccine to move past emergency-use status in the US
Born on this day
- Astley CooperBritish surgeon and anatomist (died 1841)
- Radha Gobinda KarIndian physician and philanthropist (died 1918)
- Hamilton O. SmithAmerican microbiologist, restriction enzymes expert and Nobel laureate (1978), born in Manhattan, New York (d. 2025)
- Thomas A. SteitzAmerican Biochemist (2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for ribosome discoveries), born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1940-2018)
- Patrick TaylorIrish-Canadian medical researcher, editor, and novelist (An Irish Country series), born in Bangor, Northern Ireland
- Antonia Novello14th US Surgeon General (1990-92) 1dt woman and Hispanic holder, born in Farjardo, Puerto Rico
Died on this day
- Roberto AssagioliItalian psychiatrist and writer (Psychosynthesis,), dies at 86
- Stanford MooreAmerican biochemist (Nobel 1977), dies at 68
- R.D. LaingScottish psychiatrist (anti-psychiatry), and writer (The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise), dies of a heart attack at 61
- Robert KnoxBritish bacteriologist known for his contributions to antibiotic therapy, dies at 96
- William GlasserAmerican psychiatrist, dies from respiratory failure from pneumonia at 88
- Augusta ChiwyCongolese-Belgian nurse (born 1921)