February 23 in Medical History
26 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland, on suspicion of poisoning wells
- College of Apothecaries organized in Philadephia; 1st US pharmacy college
- American Anti-Vivisection Society organized (Philadelphia)
- The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
- People magazine features drug ordeal of Mackenzie & Papa John Phillips
- 1985 Baseball World Series winning manager Dick Howser retires from Kansas City Royals role due to brain tumor
- First major COVID-19 outbreak in Europe in Italy with 152 cases and three deaths, prompting emergency measures, locking down 10 towns in Lombardy
- COVID-19 PandemicChina's Supreme Leader Xi Jinping describes the country's COVID-19 outbreak as the China's largest health emergency since 1949
- COVID-19 PandemicPresident Moon Jae-in puts South Korea on high alert, empowering the government to lock down cities after 602 cases of COVID-19 reported with six deaths
- COVID-19 antibodies survey in Nigeria suggests 4 million people have had the virus in Lagos state alone, more than officially recorded for whole of Africa
- Sports HistoryTiger Woods crashes his car driving south of Los Angeles, injuring both his legs
Born on this day
- Gustav NachtigalGerman physician and explorer (consul in Tunis, secured protectorates for Germany in central Africa), born in Eichstedt, Brandenburg (d. 1885)
- Karl JaspersGerman existentialist philosopher, born in Oldenburg Germany (d. 1969)
- Casimir FunkPolish biochemist (died 1967)
- Margaret FarrerEnglish midwife (Central Midwives Board), born in Rhodesia (d. 1997)
- Vasily Grigoryevich LazarevSoviet Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz 12, Soyuz 18A), born in Siberia, USSR (d. 1990)
- Rajini ThiranagamaSri Lankan physician and academic (died 1989)
Died on this day
- Andrea CesalpinoItalian philosopher, physician and botanist, dies at 83
- Amanda CajanderFinnish medical reformer (born 1827)
- Mahendralal SarkarIndian homeopath doctor and founder of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, dies at 70
- Johannes Friedrich August von EsmarchGerman surgeon (b. 1823)
- Hadley WilliamsCanadian surgeon and educator (born 1864)
- John Friend MahoneyAmerican physician who pioneered the treatment of syphilis with penicillin, dies at 67
- Dickinson W. RichardsAmerican physician (Nobel 1956 - development of cardiac catheterization and the characterisation of a number of cardiac diseases), dies at 77
- Stuart Bergerdoctor (Immune Power Diet), dies from obesity at 40
- Denis LazureCanadian physician and politician, dies at 82