December 29 in Medical History
25 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Danish student and future astronomer Tycho Brache loses part of his nose in a sword duel over who is the better mathematician (he wore a prosthetic nose the rest of his life)
- 1st transistorized hearing aid offered for sale (Elmsford NY)
- Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States) signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon
- US Food and Drug Administration first approves the use of Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride) to treat depression
- Courtney Love sues doctors for leaking news of her methadone treatment
- Hong Kong begins slaughtering all chickens to prevent avian influenza (bird flu)
- Orville Lynn Majors, 36, arrested for many deaths under his care
- Seven-time world F1 motor racing champion Michael Schumacher suffers a serious head injury in a ski accident in the French Alps
- Ebola epidemic in Guinea declared over by WHO, 2,500 died over 2 years
Born on this day
- Carl LudwigGerman physician and physiologist, born in Witzenhausen, Germany (d. 1895)
- Sam SheppardAmerican physician and accused wife murderer, born in Cleveland, Ohio (d. 1970)
- Irving GottesmanAmerican psychologist known for his work on the causes of schizophrenia, born in Cleveland, Ohio (d. 2016)
- Richard HortonEnglish physician and journalist
Died on this day
- Thomas SydenhamEnglish physician and author of "Observationes Medicae", dies at 65
- Anderson AbbottCanadian physician and writer (first Canadian-born black doctor), dies at 76
- William OslerCanadian physician and author (circulatory system), dies at 70
- Madeleine PelletierFrench psychiatrist, feminist and political activist (born 1874)
- Miles Vandahurst LynkAmerican physician and author (born 1871)
- Philippe PannetonCanadian physician, diplomat and writer (Trente arpents), dies at 65
- Richard Tecwyn WilliamsWelsh biochemist (born 1909)
- Philip HandlerAmerican nutritionist, and biochemist (born 1917)
- Sidney GarfieldAmerican physician and pioneer of health maintenance organizations (Kaiser Permanente), dies at 78
- Hans HenkemansDutch pianist, composer and psychiatrist (born 1913)
- Julius AxelrodAmerican biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1912)
- Gerda BoyesenNorwegian founder of Biodynamic Psychology and Psychotherapy, dies at 83