February 9 in Medical History
12 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Deaths from COVID-19 virus overtake those of Sars (2003) with 813 deaths worldwide, with more than 34,800 known infections
- WHO team investigating origin of COVID-19 in Wuhan say it is "extremely unlikely" that it leaked from a local research lab
Born on this day
- Aletta Jacobs1st Dutch female physician and women's suffrage activist, born in Sappemeer, Netherlands (d. 1929)
- Howard T RickettsAmerican pathologist (studied typhus fever), born in Findlay, Ohio (d. 1910)
- Jacques MonodFrench biochemist (1966 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine - genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis), born in Paris, France (d. 1976)
- Norman E. ShumwayAmerican pioneer cardiac transplant surgeon (1st US adult human to human heart transplantation), born in Kalamazoo, Michigan (d. 2006)
- Kermit GosnellAmerican abortion clinic doctor and convicted murderer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 2026)
- Yoshinori OhsumiJapanese biologist, 2016 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
- Peggy WhitsonAmerican astronaut, first woman to command International Space Station, US record for most days in space (695), born in Mt Ayr, Iowa
Died on this day
- Lucilio VaniniItalian philosopher (b. 1585)
- Truby KingNew Zealand physician, pioneer in infant welfare (Karitāne hospitals, Plunket Society), dies at 79
- Howard Martin TeminAmerican geneticist (Nobel Prize, 1975), dies at 59