October 18 in Medical History
16 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- World Menopause Day
Events
- Heartbroken by the deaths of her sons Nero and Drusus, and banished to the island of Pandateria by Tiberius, Agrippina the Elder dies of self-inflicted starvation.
- Nobel Prize in MedicineJames Watson (US), Francis Crick (UK), and Maurice Wilkins (UK) win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in determining the structure of DNA
- Federal government bans the use of cyclamate artificial sweeteners
- Event 201The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-host "Event 201" in New York City, a tabletop exercise simulating the devastating impact of a severe pandemic; three months later, COVID-19 breaks out
Born on this day
- Nicholas CulpeperEnglish botanist (died 1654)
- Max GersonGerman-born American physician (died 1959)
- Vera Houghton [née Travis]British women's health campaigner and founder of Birth Control Trust, born in London (d. 2013)
- Luc JournetBelgian physician and religious leader (Order of Zonnetempel), born in Kikwit, Belgian Congo (d. 1994)
Died on this day
- Johannes Acronius FrisiusGerman physician and mathematician (b. 1520)
- Philipp Franz von SieboldGerman physician and botanist who introduced Western medicine to Japan, dies at 70
- Alfred BinetFrench child psychologist who invented the first practical IQ test (Binet–Simon test), dies at 54
- William E. UpjohnAmerican physician who invented dissolvable pills (Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company), dies at 79
- Santiago Ramón y CajalSpanish pathologist, histologist, and neuroscientist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1852)
- Lisbeth PalmeSwedish child psychologist, former chairwoman of UNICEF (born 1931)
- Ginés González GarcíaArgentine politician and physician (born 1945)