Today in Medical History

January 19 in Medical History

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

Events

9
  1. 1901Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, is stricken with paralysis. She dies three days later at the age of 81.Notable person's healthWikipedia
  2. 1981Muhammad Ali talks a despondent 21-year-old out of committing suicideMental healthOnThisDay
  3. 1984California Supreme Court rejects the request of quadriplegic Elizabeth Bouvia's to starve herself to death in a public hospitalPublic health / PolicyOnThisDay
  4. 1986Cerebral Palsy telethon raises $17 millionHealthcare institution / ProfessionOnThisDay
  5. 1992Cerebral Palsy telethon raises $23.5 millionHealthcare institution / ProfessionOnThisDay
  6. 2021The US death toll from COVID-19 passes 400,000Disease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  7. 2022Major report on antimicrobial resistance shows 4.95m deaths worldwide associated with drug-resistant bacteria, making untreatable infections now a leading cause of deathDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  8. 2022UK Eases RestrictionsUK PM Boris Johnson eases Omicron COVID-19 restrictions, saying the current wave of infections has peakedDisease / EpidemicOnThisDay
  9. 2024UK declares national incident over rise of measles cases due to lack of vaccination, WHO’s European region also reports 5-fold increase 2022-2023Disease / EpidemicOnThisDay

Born on this day

4
  1. 1837William Williams KeenAmerican physician (1st American brain surgeon), born in Philadelphia, Pennslyvania (d. 1932)Physician / SurgeonOnThisDay
  2. 1904James W. WattsAmerican neurosurgeon, developer of the Frontal Lobotomy, born in Lynchburg, Virginia (d. 1994)Physician / SurgeonOnThisDay
  3. 1905Oveta Culp HobbyAmerican government official (1st US Secretary of Health) and newspaper publisher (Houston Post), born in Killeen, Texas (d. 1995)Health leader / ActivistOnThisDay
  4. 1947Rod EvansBritish rock singer (The Maze; Deep Purple, 1968-69; Captain Beyond, 1971-73), and respiratory therapist, born in Eton, Buckinghamshire, EnglandDentist / Pharmacist / AlliedWikipedia

Died on this day

4
  1. 1647Johan van BeverwijckDutch writer and town physician of Dordrecht (Treasure of Health, Treasure of Disease), dies at 52Physician / SurgeonOnThisDay
  2. 2015Karl H. Pribram “Magellan of the Mind”Austrian-American neuroscientist, psychologist and philosopher (research into brain’s limbic system), dies at 95Medical scientistOnThisDay
  3. 2017H. Boyd WoodruffAmerican microbiologist whose research led to antibiotics, dies at 99Medical scientistOnThisDay
  4. 2017Paul OrnsteinHungarian-American Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst, dies of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at 92Psychiatry / PsychologyOnThisDay

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.