August 24 in Medical History
19 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Black Death Massacre: Jews of the Free Imperial City of Cologne set themselves on fire to avoid forced baptism into Christianity amidst Bubonic Plague accusations, part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe
- The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.
- Los Angeles Dodgers coach Leo Durocher suffers a near-fatal allergic reaction to a penicillin injection while in the clubhouse at the Polo Grounds in NYC
- British Professor Kevin Warwick is the first human to receive an RIFD (radio-frequency identification) microchip implant to interact with electronic systems
- Nurse William Pooley flies back to the UK for emergency treatment after contracting the Ebola virus while attempting to treat patients in Sierra Leone
- First documented case of a person being reinfected with COVID-19 a second time, a Hong Kong man four months after first infection
Born on this day
- Haim Ernst WertheimerGerman-Israeli biochemist and academic (died 1978)
- Albert ClaudeBelgian biologist and physician (Nobel 1974), born in Longlier, Belgium (d. 1983)
- Charles Snead HoustonAmerican physician and mountaineer (died 2009)
- James Tiptree Jr. [Alice Sheldon]American sci-fi author (Byte Beautiful), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1987)
- Anita V FigueredoAmerican physician and humanitarian, born in Costa Rica (d. 2010)
- Betty DodsonAmerican feminist, sexologist and writer (Sex for One), born in Wichita, Kansas (d. 2020)
- Marsha P. JohnsonAfrican-American gay liberation and AIDS activist, drag queen, and transgender pioneer (Gay Liberation Front, S.T.A.R.), born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1945-1992)
- Anna Lee Fisher [Tingle]American chemist, emergency physician and astronaut (STS 51-A), born in St Albans, New York
- John Ireland [Griffith]South African pop singer-songwriter ("I Like"), and medical doctor, born in Ireland, or South Africa (details sketchy)
Died on this day
- John William PolidoriEnglish writer and physician (born 1795)
- Clara MaassAmerican army nurse who sacrificed her life at 25 to prove that mosquitoes carry yellow fever. Her death put an end to yellow fever experiments on human beings.
- Erich GeiringerNew Zealand general practitioner campaigner (founder of the New Zealand Medical Association), dies at 78
- Elisabeth Kübler-RossSwiss-born psychiatrist (b. 1926)