November 18 in Medical History
15 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Charles François Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practising the surgery on several peasants.
- Cholera breaks out in Constantinople, in the Ottoman Empire
- Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers' pitcher Sandy Koufax announces his retirement due to an arthritic left elbow
- Pauling on Vitamin CAmerican scientist Linus Pauling popularizes the idea that taking large doses of vitamin C can prevent or treat the common cold; the claim is largely unproven
- Boxing Matches Shortened to 12 RoundsSouth Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim dies from injuries sustained during a 14-round beating by Ray Mancini in Las Vegas; WBC shortens title bouts to 12 rounds; WBA and WBO follow in 1988, and IBF in 1989
- Pennsylvania is first to restrict abortions after US Supreme Court gave states the right to do so
- US COVID-19 death toll passes 250,000, recorded cases at 11.5 million, hospitalizations at 76,830 amid a country-wide surge
Born on this day
- Hippolytus GuarinoniusItalian physician and polymath (died 1654)
- Philibert CommerçonFrench naturalist, born in Châtillon-les-Dombes, France (d. 1773)
- Frances Gertrude McGillpioneering Canadian forensic pathologist (died 1959)
- George WaldAmerican physiologist and biologist (Nobel Prize 1967, vitamin A in retina), born in New York City (1906-1997)
- John O'KeefeAmerican-English neuroscientist (2014 Nobel Prize for Physiology for discovery of place cells), born in New York City
Died on this day
- Fredric WerthamGerman-born American psychiatrist and author, dies at 86
- Herman MusaphDutch Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, dermatologist and sexologist, dies at 76
- Denton CooleyAmerican heart surgeon (1st artificial heart transplant), dies at 96