May 5 in Medical History
23 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- International Midwives' Day (International)
Events
- Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital (Northern Ireland) after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
- American country singer Tammy Wynette hospitalized with bile duct infection
- Electric cigarette explodes killing a man in St. Petersburg, Florida, first death from a vaping product
- Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson suffers a brain hemorrhage and is hospitalized; he recovers
- Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 3.65 million, US cases pass 70,000 while the UK becomes the most affected in Europe with 29,427 known deaths
- São Luis, in Maranhão state becomes the first Brazilian city to enter lockdown because of COVID-19 as its health services struggle to cope
- Canada is the first country to authorize the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15 year olds
- US Supports Vaccine Patent WaiverUS President Joe Biden announces the US will support temporarily lifting patent protection on COVID-19 vaccines with the WHO
- WHO study of excess deaths worldwide says 15 million more people have died than normal, far above the official COVID-19 death toll of 6 million
- The World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency.
- The Vatican announces the Popemobile will be donated and converted into a mobile health clinic for wounded children in Gaza, Palestine
Born on this day
- John ArcherAmerican Congressman who received the 1st medical diploma issued on US continent (1768), born near Churchville, Maryland (d. 1810)
- William George BeersCanadian dentist and patriot (died 1900)
- John L. LealAmerican physician (died 1914)
- Robert HoubenBelgian politician (Minister of Public health 1958), born in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium (d. 1992)
- Philip Manson-BahrEnglish zoologist and specialist in tropical medicine, born in Wavertree, Liverpool, England (d. 1996)
- Irene Gut OpdykePolish nurse and humanitarian (died 2003)
Died on this day
- Jean AstrucFrench physician and scholar who was the first to apply textual analysis to study Genesis, dies at 82
- Pierre Jean George CabanisFrench physiologist, dies at 50
- Violet JessopTitanic survivor (b. 1887)
- 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, dies at 77
- Stanley FalkowAmerican microbiologist (molecular mechanisms of infectious diseases), dies at 84