Today in Medical History

January 11 in Medical History

24 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.

Events

12
  1. 19221st Insulin InjectionInsulin is first used on humans when Frederick Banting injects 14-year-old Canadian Leonard Thompson to treat his diabetesDrug / VaccineWikipedia
  2. 1964First government report by US Surgeon General Luther Terry warning that smoking may be hazardousPublic health / PolicyWikipedia
  3. 1971Tigers ace reliever John Hiller, 27, sufferes a heart attack, but later makes a remarkable comeback to record 38 savesNotable person's healthOnThisDay
  4. 1985CDC MMWR publishes guidelines for screening U.S. blood supply for AIDS antibodies with ELISA test that would be available later that yearDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  5. 1989140 nations agree to ban chemical weapons (poison gas, etc)Public health / PolicyOnThisDay
  6. 1990Actor Joseph Cotton (84) undergoes cancer operation to remove his larynxNotable person's healthOnThisDay
  7. 2020COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei: Municipal health officials in Wuhan announce the first recorded death from COVID-19.Disease / EpidemicWikipedia
  8. 2021Ireland becomes the country with the world's highest COVID-19 infection rate after a dramatic surge results in seven-day rolling average of 1,394 cases per millionDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  9. 2021The king of Malaysia, Al-Sultan Abdullah declares a state of emergency over COVID-19 till 1 August, suspending parliament and giving the government new powersDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  10. 2022Quebec announces it will impose a healthcare tax on unvaccinated adults who are accounting for 50% of ICU cases (scrapped Feb 2022)Public health / PolicyOnThisDay
  11. 2022WHO warns more than half of Europe could catch COVID-19 within weeks, warning of a "west-to-east tidal wave"Disease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  12. 2024Death toll from Zambia's cholera outbreak reaches 300 as the president urges people to move away from dense urban areasDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay

Born on this day

6
  1. 1630John RogersEnglish Puritan minister and President of Harvard College (1682-84), born in Coggeshall, England (d. 1684)Physician / SurgeonWikipedia
  2. 1638Nicolas StenoDanish scientist prominent in anatomy and geology, and later Catholic priest, bishop, and candidate for sainthood, born in Copenhagen, Denmark (d. 1686)Medical scientistWikipedia
  3. 1814James PagetEnglish surgeon (disease of Paget), born in Great Yarmouth, England (d. 1899)Physician / SurgeonWikipedia
  4. 1849Oskar LassarGerman dermatologist (electrophysical therapy, advocated for public bath houses), born in Hamburg (d. 1907)Physician / SurgeonOnThisDay
  5. 1874Alfonso Quiñónez MolinaSalvadoran politician, physician, and three-time president of El Salvador (died 1950)Physician / SurgeonWikipedia
  6. 1924Roger GuilleminFrench-American neuroscientist (1977 Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on neurohormones), born in Dijon, France (d. 2024)Medical scientistWikipedia

Died on this day

6
  1. 1753Hans SloaneIrish physician, naturalist and collector (providing the foundation of the British Museum), dies at 92Physician / SurgeonWikipedia
  2. 1882Theodor SchwannGerman physician , physiologist and co-originator of cell theory (Schwann cells; pepsin; metabolism), dies at 71 (1810-1882)Medical scientistWikipedia
  3. 1994Helmut PoppendickNazi physician, dies at 92Physician / SurgeonWikipedia
  4. 2002Struan SutherlandAustralian medical researcher (b. 1936)Medical scientistOnThisDay
  5. 2015Vernon Benjamin MountcastleAmerican neuroscientist and academic (born 1918)Medical scientistWikipedia
  6. 2021William Edgar ThorntonAmerican medical doctor, USAF officer, and astronaut (STS-8, STS-51B), dies at 91Physician / SurgeonOnThisDay

Sources: onthisday.com and Wikipedia's “On this day” (text under CC BY-SA 4.0), screened for medical relevance. Each entry links to its source.