May 20 in Medical History
17 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- National Awakening Day (Indonesia), and its related observances: — Indonesian Doctor Day (Indonesia)
Events
- Ignatius Loyola seriously wounded by a cannonball
- University of California dedicates $1,500 to research on prevention and cure of athlete's foot
- 710 families in Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York are evacuated due to linger effects of prior use as chemical waste disposal site
- First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by a team of French scientists including Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Jean-Claude Chermann, and Luc Montagnier.
- UK Public Enquiry report into the infected blood scandal that killed around 3,000 people between 1970 and 1991, published blaming the government and the health service
Born on this day
- Levinus LemniusDutch writer (died 1568)
- Hieronymus Fabricius Ab Aquapende Italian physician (De Formato Foetu)born in Aquapende, Italy (d. 1619)
- Hendrik OfferhausDutch Olympic rower and head of the Dutch Red Cross (died 1953)
- Edward B. LewisAmerican geneticist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1995), born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania (d. 2004)
- John HarrisonBritish vice admiral and surgeon (Medical Director Royal Navy during Falklands War), born in Simla, British India (d. 2010)
Died on this day
- Ana NériBrazilian nurse and philanthropist (born 1814)
- Randolph WestAmerican biochemist, known for the Dakin-West reaction (b. 1890)
- Julius MarmurAmerican biochemist and geneticist (DNA research), dies at 70
- Marthe CohnFrench nurse and spy during World War Ⅱ, dies at 105
- Diane Carlson EvansAmerican Army nurse and founder of the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation, dies of cancer at 79
- Emanuel 'Manny' NosowskyAmerican urologist and crossword creator for The New York Times (1992-2010), dies at 94