May 1 in Medical History
22 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- Christian feast day: — Marcouf
- Christian feast day: — Peregrine Laziosi
Events
- First public flushing toilets the 'Monkey Closets' unveiled by George Jennings as part of The Great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London, costing one penny
- Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled first opens its doors in New York City, oldest orthopaedic hospital in the United States
- Bob Rogers is acknowledged as the first American pro sports trainer when he is hired by the NY Athletic Club
- US Quarantine Station opens on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay
- A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system," marking the official discovery of Minamata disease
- Emperor NaruhitoNaruhito officially succeeds his father Akihito as the Emperor of Japan after the latter abdicated due to ill health
- Two-time South African Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya loses appeal against proposed rules to limit her testosterone levels; medically reducing levels the only way to continue competition
- Armed protesters against stay-at-home-orders gather at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, as Governor Gretchen Whitmer reinstates State of Emergency
- India is the first country to record more than 400,000 new COVID-19 cases in one day (401,993)
Born on this day
- John WoodwardEnglish geologist known for his collection of fossils and physician, born in Derbyshire (d. 1728)
- Emily StoweCanadian suffragist and first woman licensed to practise medicine in Canada, born in Norwich Township, Oxford County, Ontario (d. 1903)
- [Robert] Lawson TaitScottish-born pioneering surgeon performed first salpingectomy for ectopic pregnancy, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1899)
- Laza LazarevićSerbian writer (Prvi put s ocem na jutrenje) and psychiatrist, born in Šabac, Serbia (d. 1891)
- Santiago Ramón y CajalSpanish histologist (central nervous system) and neuroscientist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906), born in Petilla de Aragón, Navarre, Spain (d. 1934)
- Clelia LolliniItalian physician (died 1963 or 1964)
- Horst SchumannGerman Nazi physician who oversaw concentration camp x-ray sterilization and gas chamber murder of Jews, as well as euthanasia centers to kill feeble and ill people, born in Halle, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia (d. 1983)
Died on this day
- Antoine Louis DugèsFrench obstetrician and naturalist (born 1797)
- Ludwig BüchnerGerman philosopher and physician, dies at 75
- T.R.M. Howardcivil rights leader, entrepreneur, surgeon (b. 1908)
- Kenneth ClarkAmerican psychologist and academic (born 1914)