December 14 in Medical History
20 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Pure Food and Drug ActThe Pure Food and Drug Act is introduced in the U.S. Senate, after lobbying by businessman Henry John Heinz
- Harrison Narcotics Tax ActUS President Woodrow Wilson signs Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, to regulate and tax production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products
- America's first board certified doctors are named by the American Board of Ophthalmology following an examination at the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis, Tennessee
- Arthur Kornberg and his colleagues synthesize a viable virus DNA in a test tube, an achievement lauded as the "creation of life in a test tube"
- Dutch 1st Chamber condemns Dutch Liberal/social dem abortion laws
- Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed, she dies 12 days later
- Philadelphia"Philadelphia", one of the first mainstream films about AIDS, directed by Jonathan Demme, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington , premieres in Century City, California
- AIDS activist Jeff Getty receives a bone marrow transplant from a baboon to treat the disease
- British surgeon Simon Bramhall admits to branding the liver of 2 patients with his initials
- Report by Reuters US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson knew for decades their talc was contaminated with asbestos
- America begins its first COVID-19 vaccinations using the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on the same day it records over 300,000 deaths
- American Covid-19 death toll passes 800,000, with more deaths recorded in 2021 than 2020
Born on this day
- Edward L TatumAmerican molecular geneticist and biochemist (Nobel Prize 1958), born in Boulder, Colorado (d. 1975)
- Doris WethersAmerican pediatrician and co-founder of the Foundation for Research and Education in Sickle Cell Disease, born in Passaic, New Jersey (d. 2019)
- Patty DukeAmerican Academy and Emmy awarding actress (The Miracle Worker; The Patty Duke Show), and mental health advocate, mother of Sean Astin, born in New York City (1946-2016)
- Glenda E. GraySouth African scientist specializing in HIV research, born in Boksburg, South Africa
Died on this day
- Johann Philipp FörtschGerman Baroque composer, statesman, and physician, dies at 80
- Jean-Olivier ChénierFrench Canadian physician and Patriote, dies during Battle of Saint-Eustache at 32
- John Harvey KelloggAmerican surgeon and nutritionist, inspired flaked cereal industry, dies at 91
- Josephine Riley Matthews "Mama Jo"African-American midwife (delivered over 1300 babies), dies at 96