January 27 in Medical History
11 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg.
- Actress Thelma Ritter suffers a heart attack (she dies Feb 5th)
- Jane Fonda SurgeryJane Fonda undergoes arthroscopic surgery on her right knee
- 15 day old conjoined twins separated: Sarah Morales survives, Sarahi dies
- The Kiss nightclub fire in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, ignited by pyrotechnics used by a performing rock band kills 245 people and injures at least 600 others; most of the deaths were from toxic smoke inhalation, the club was over capacity and had no fire exits
Born on this day
- Thomas WillisEnglish physician, studied epidemiology, anatomy of the brain and the nervous system, born in Great Bedwyn, England (d. 1675)
- John EcclesAustralian neurologist (1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for work on the synapse), born in Melbourne, Australia (d. 1997)
- Anna OrnsteinHungarian-American Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst (Survival and Recovery), born in Szendro, Hungary (d. 2025)
- Tasuku HonjoJapanese immunologist (Nobel Prize for medicine 2018), born in Kyoto, Japan
- Amos GrunebaumIsraeli-German physician and media personality (Dr. Ruth's Pregnancy Guide for Couples, The Paper), born in Haifa, Israel
Died on this day
- Jeannette HambyAmerican nurse and politician (born 1933)