February 15 in Medical History
25 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Pope Paschal II issues Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, recognizing the Order of Hospitallers.
- Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits 1st patient
- The 1925 serum run to Nome: The second delivery of serum arrives in Nome, Alaska.
- Longest dream (REM sleep) on record is experienced by Bill Carskadon in Chicago lasting 2 hours and 23 minutes
- Sports HistoryAmerican boxer Tommy Morrison announces he has contracted HIV, a diagnosis he later claimed to be false
- First draft of the complete human genome is published in the journal "Nature"
- First known case of transgender woman breastfeeding reported in "Transgender Health Journal" in US
- Beijing orders people returning to the city after Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent spread of Covid-19
- UK is the first European country to require travellers from COVID-19 'hotspots' to isolate in quarantine hotels, following other countries such as Australia, NZ and Singapore
Born on this day
- Antonio Maria ValsalvaItalian anatomist (anatomy of the ear), born in Imola (d. 1723)
- Silas Weir MitchellAmerican physician (discovered causalgia, erythromelalgia) and author (Roland Blake, Hugh Wynne), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1914)
- Rickman GodleeEnglish surgeon and academic (died 1925)
- Emil KraepelinGerman psychiatrist who developed a classification system for mental illness, born in Munich, Germany (1856-1926)
- Hans von Euler-ChelpinGerman-born Swedish biochemist who investigated the fermentation of sugar and enzymes (Nobel 1929), born in Augsburg, Kingdom of Bavaria (d. 1964)
- Nise da SilveiraBrazilian psychiatrist (made advances in occupational therapy), born in Maceió, Brazil (d. 1999)
- Irena Sendler [née Krzyżanowska]Polish nurse, social worker, and WWII heroine who helped smuggle Jewish ghetto children to safety, born in Warsaw, Russian Poland (d. 2008)
- Angella FergusonAmerican pediatrician known for developing a blood test to diagnose sickle cell in newborns, born in Washington, D.C. (d. 2026)
- William ReidBritish Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (1990-96), born in Aberdeen, Scotland
- Pumla Gobodo-MadikizelaSouth African psychologist, researcher and writer (A Human Being Died that Night), born in Langa, South Africa
Died on this day
- Wilhelm FabryGerman surgeon (Father of German surgery), dies at 73
- Archibald MenziesScottish surgeon and botanist (born 1754)
- Theodor EscherichGerman-Austrian pediatrician, discovered bacteria E. coli, dies at 53
- Pieter Klazes PelDutch physician (Pel-Ebstein fever), dies at 66
- Bruno Ferenc StraubHungarian biochemist and statesman, dies at 82
- Paul BergAmerican biochemist (development of recombinant DNA techniques, Nobel Chemistry 1980), dies at 96