February 17 in Medical History
20 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- A group of citizens of Geneva found an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- NHL Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Bernie Parent (34) suffers a career-ending eye injury when he is struck with a stick during a game
- 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)
- Johnson & Johnson announces it will no longer sell capsule drugs
- Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive & manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked
- Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax
- Friso, Prince of Orange-Nassau (31), buried under an avalanche while skiing in Lech, Austria; suffers oxygen deprivation and lapses into a terminal coma
- South Africa, Africa's worst-affected country begins COVID-19 vaccinations with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Cape Town
Born on this day
- René LaënnecFrench physician who invented the stethoscope, born in Quimper, France (d. 1826)
- Philipp Franz von SieboldGerman physician and botanist who introduced Western medicine to Japan, born in Würzburg (d. 1866)
- Mori ŌgaiJapanese novelist (The Wild Geese), poet and surgeon, born in Iwami Province, Japan (d. 1922)
- Mary Carson BreckinridgeAmerican nurse midwife, founded Frontier Nursing Service (died 1965)
- Annie Glenn [Anna Castor]American speech disorder advocate and wife of John Glenn, born in Columbus, Ohio (d. 2020)
- Duane GishAmerican biochemist and academic (died 2013)
- Michiaki TakahashiJapanese virologist (died 2013)
- Karin Büttner-JanzGerman artistic gymnast (Olympic gold GDR vault, uneven bars 1968; World C'ships gold uneven bars 1970), born in Lübben, Germany
Died on this day
- Jan SwammerdamDutch anatomist and entomologist (Bible of Nature), dies at 43
- Evert GorterDutch children's pioneering paediatrician founder of Dutch medical child care), dies at 72
- Lütfi KırdarTurkish physician and politician, Turkish Minister of Health (born 1887)
- Arno MotulskyGerman-born founder of medical genetics, known as the "father of pharmacogenomics," dies at 94