May 14 in Medical History
29 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Jenner's Vaccine for SmallpoxEnglish country doctor Edward Jenner administers his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox in Berkeley, Gloucestershire
- Vaseline is granted a patent (U.S. Patent 127,568)
- John McGraw is knocked down by a taxicab and suffers a broken leg
- Lina Medina of Peru becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five
- Australian Hospital Ship Centaur sinks off the coast of Queensland after being struck by torpedo fired by Japanese submarine; 268 of 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard die
- Highest Human Radiation DosePhysician Joseph G. Hamilton injects misdiagnosed cancer patient Albert Stevens (CAL-1) with 131 kBq (3.55 µCi) of plutonium without his knowledge. Stevens lives another 20 years, surviving the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human
- Abortion & contraception legalized in Canada
- Department of Health & Human Services begins operation
- Stanford University scientists develop a prototype bionic eye
- Successful memory transfer in snails achieved by scientists from University of California published in journal "eNeuro"
- Melania HospitalizedMelania Trump , wife of US President Donald Trump, is treated in hospital for a benign kidney condition
- Former pandemic agency head Rick Bright testifies to a US House Committee "without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history"
- Global death toll from COVID-19 passes 300,000 with 4.4 million confirmed infections
- US records one million COVID-19 deaths, with The White House ordering flags to fly at half mast through the weekend
Born on this day
- Johann Philipp FörtschGerman Baroque composer, statesman, and physician, born in Wertheim am Main, Wertheim County, Holy Roman Empire (d. 1732)
- Magnus HirschfeldGerman physician and gay rights advocate, born in Kolberg, Prussia (1868-1935)
- Charlotte AuerbachGerman-Scottish folklorist, geneticist, and zoologist (died 1994)
- Robert RitterGerman child psychologist who classified the Roma and Sinti populations for persecution under the Third Reich, born in Aachen, German Empire (d. 1951)
- Marcel JunodSwiss physician and International Committee of the Red Cross delegate (1935-59), born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (d. 1961)
- William JamesAustralian general and physician (died 2015)
- Jill SteinAmerican physician, activist and Green Party nominee for President (2016), born in Chicago, Illinois
- Zofija Mazej KukovičSlovenian electrical engineer and minister of health 2007–8
Died on this day
- Gideon BrecherAustrian physician and Jewish writer, dies at 76
- Mary SeacoleJamaican businesswoman, author and nurse to British soldiers during Crimean War, dies at 76
- Magnus HirschfeldGerman physician and gay rights advocate, dies of a heart attack at 67 (1868-1935)
- Joan MallesonEnglish physician (born 1889)
- Sandor RadoHungarian-American psychoanalyst, dies at 82
- Christian B. AnfinsenAmerican biochemist (Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1972 for ribonuclease,), dies at 79
- Hans van HouwelingenDutch mathematician and professor emeritus of medical statistics (born 1945)