December 16 in Medical History
13 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- UK National Insurance Act becomes law, providing health insurance for industrial workers (about a third of the workforce)
- Government halts swine flu vaccination program following reports of paralysis
- Riverside, California judge denies cerebral palsy victim Elizabeth Bouviato request to starve herself to death in a county hospital
- Dennō Senshi Porygon: Over 600 kids in Japan suffer photosensitive epileptic seizures after watching an episode of the Pokémon anime.
- Nine-year-old girl who died of an asthma attack in 2013 becomes first person in the world to officially have air pollution listed as cause of death
Born on this day
- Ernst von BergmannLatvian-German surgeon and academic (died 1907)
- Hristo TatarchevBulgarian and Macedonian revolutionary, founded Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (VMORO), born in Resen, Ottoman Empire (d. 1952)
- Richard ScolyerAustralian pathologist, skin cancer researcher and 2024's Australian of the Year, born in Launceston, Australia (d. 2026)
Died on this day
- François QuesnayFrench personal physician of Louis XIV, dies at 80
- Richard BrightEnglish physician (Bright's disease/nephritis), dies at 69
- Abraham CapadoseDutch physician and missionary, dies at 79
- Manto Tshabalala-Msimangcontroversial South African Health Minister (b. 1940)
- Mama Cax [Cacsmy Brutus]Haitian-American model and disability activist (Savage X Fenty Show 2019), dies at 30