May 17 in Medical History
20 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- World Hypertension Day
Events
- World Health Organization takes homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses
- Music HistoryAustralian singer Kylie Minogue is diagnosed with breast cancer at 36
- Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo spreads to the city of Mbandaka
- Event of InterestFormer US President Barack Obama criticizes the US government's handling of the pandemic during an online address to graduates, saying officials "aren't even pretending to be in charge"
- Long working hours killed 745,000 people a year, in 2016, in the first study of its kind by the World Health Organization
- World Health Organization declares the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a public health emergency of international concern
Born on this day
- Edward JennerEnglish physician , father of (western) immunology, pioneered smallpox vaccinations, born in Berkeley (1749-1823)
- Sebastian KneippBavarian priest and naturopathist (known for "Kneipp Cure" form of hydrotherapy), born in Stephansried, Germany (d. 1897)
- Saul AdlerBelarusian-English captain and parasitologist (died 1966)
- Robert N. ThompsonAmerican-Canadian chiropractor and politician (died 1997)
- F. Paul WilsonAmerican horror and sci-fi novelist (Repairman Jack), and medical doctor, born in Jersey City, New Jersey
Died on this day
- William HeberdenEnglish physician (b. 1710)
- Leopold AuenbruggerAustrian physician (invented percussion as a diagnostic technique), dies at 86
- Clara AyresAmerican nurse (born 1880)
- John Wilcephysician and former head football coach at the Ohio State University (b. 1888)
- Nandor FodorHungarian-American psychologist and parapsychologist (born 1895)
- Armin T. WegnerGerman medic, photographer, writer, and civil rights activist (documented the Armenian Genocide), dies at 92
- Frank G. Slaughter [C.V. Terry]American novelist and physician (Sangaree), dies at 93
- Gerald EdelmanAmerican biochemist (Nobel 1972), dies from natural causes at 84