December 28 in Medical History
16 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays.
- 1st American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr is born in Norfolk, Virginia
- Early signs of Ebola epidemic: 2-year-old child in Guinea dies of an unidentified hemorrhagic fever; mother, sister and grandmother soon follow
Born on this day
- Karl Ludwig KahlbaumGerman psychiatrist (pioneer in classifying mental health), born in Driesen, Prussia (d. 1899)
- Christian Frederik LeipoldtSouth African physician, writer and poet, born in Worcester, South Africa (d. 1947)
- Edna Foa [née Jacob]Israeli-American psychologist known for developing prolonged exposure therapy as a PTSD treatment, born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine (d. 2026)
- Kary B. MullisAmerican biochemist and winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993, born in Lenoir, North Carolina (d. 2019)
Died on this day
- Peter Ernst WildePolish-Estonian physician and journalist (born 1732)
- Lydia Darragh (née Barrington)Irish-American midwife and Revolutionary War patriot spy dies at about 61 [birthdate uncertain, c. 1728]
- Eugenio EspejoEcuadorian scientist (b. 1747)
- Louisa Aldrich-BlakeBritish pioneering surgeon, dies of cancer at 65
- Philippe PannetonCanadian physician, academic, and diplomat (born 1895)
- Béla SchickHungarian-American paediatrician (Schick test), dies at 90
- H. Jack GeigerAmerican doctor, civil rights activist and founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, dies at 95
- Joel HabenerAmerican physician-scientist who discovered the role of GLP-1 in diabetes and obesity, dies of a heart attack at 88
- Thomas FogartyAmerican cardiovascular surgeon and the inventor of the ballon embolectomy catheter, dies at 91