January 1 in Medical History
26 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Irish Catholic religious order the Sisters of Mercy establish the group's first "Mercy Hospital" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; it is also the city's first permanent hospital
- The first US public bath opens in New York City
- Discovery of X-raysGerman physicist Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery of X-rays
- The first blood transfusion using stored and cooled blood is performed during World War I
- The Nazi Germany "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" comes into effect
- The US Army Air Corps physiological research laboratory is completed in Ohio
- Negro Baseball League star Josh Gibson suffers a nervous breakdown and is admitted to the hospital for rest and treatment; he is released in time for preseason training
- All US cigarette packs have to state "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health"
- Cigarette advertisements are banned from broadcast media in the US
- International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade begins
- Cigarette advertisements are banned in New York City's M.T.A.
- All California bars, clubs, and card rooms are required to be smoke-free
- Qatar introduces a 100% tax on alcohol and other "health-damaging goods," doubling the price of alcohol, tobacco, energy drinks, and pork in the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim nation
- Avenger's actor Jeremy Renner is accidentally run over by a snowplow, breaking more than 30 bones in his body near Reno, Nevada
Born on this day
- Marie-Louise LachapelleFrench obstetrician (died 1821)
- John Pieter HeijeDutch physician, writer and poet (Silver Fleet), born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1876)
- Ernest JonesWelsh psychoanalyst (biographer of Freud - Life & Work of Sigmund Freud), born in Gowerton, Wales (d. 1958)
- Thomas S. LangnerAmerican sociologist who worked on "Mental Health in the Metropolis: The Midtown Manhattan Study", born in Manhattan, New York (d. 2026)
- Frederick Hans LowyCanadian psychiatrist, medical educator, and Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University (1995-2005), born in Grosspetersdorf, Austria
- Anthony Hamilton-Smith3rd Baron Colwyn, English dentist and politician (died 2024)
- Anders Danielsen LieNorwegian doctor and actor (The Worst Person in the World; Oslo, August 31st), born in Oslo, Norway
Died on this day
- Martinus BeijerinckDutch microbiologist & botanist (1st to coin the name virus), dies at 79
- Arthur PorrittNew Zealand athlete (Olympic bronze 100m 1924) and 11th governor-general of New Zealand 1967-72, dies at 93
- Roland LevinskySouth African medical scientist, dies at 63
- Nay Win MaungBurmese physician and pro-democracy activist, dies from a heart attack at 50
- Boris MorukovRussian cosmonaut, dies at 64