October 26 in Medical History
23 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- General Enea Silvio Piccolomini of Austria burns down Skopje to prevent the spread of cholera; he dies of the disease soon afterwards.
- International conference begins in Geneva aimed at improving medical conditions on battlefields, leads to the formation of the Red Cross
- Sanger Arrested for ObscenityAmerican sex educator Margaret Sanger is arrested for obscenity for advocating birth control
- Last natural case of smallpox is discovered in Merca District, Somalia, and is considered the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination
- Stephanie Fae Beauclair ("Baby Fae") receives a baboon heart transplant and lives for 21 days
- London Ambulance Service thrown into chaos after implementation problems with a new Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system
- World Health Organization classifies processed meat as carcinogenic
- Opioid CrisisUS President Donald Trump declares the opioid crisis a public health emergency
- Melbourne officials announce end to their three-month lockdown as city records no new cases of COVID-19 for 1st time since June
Born on this day
- José Gregorio HernándezVenezuelan physician, humanitarian, and Catholic saint, born in Isnotú, Venezuela (d.1919)
- Ignace LeppFrench psychologist and author (died 1966)
- Graham SerjeantBritish doctor and researcher known for his work on sickle cell disease in Jamaica, born in Bristol, England (d. 2025)
- Ricardo AschArgentinian gynecologist and endocrinologist
- Regina Benjamin18th US Surgeon General (2009-13), born in Mobile, Alabama
- Paul FarmerAmerican anthropologist and physician (died 2022)
- Amanda OvermyerAmerican rock singer (American Idol season 7 finalist), and nurse, born in Mulberry, Indiana
Died on this day
- Nikolaus Joseph von JacquinAustrian botanist and family friend of Mozart, dies at 90
- Waldemar HaffkineUkrainian bacteriologist (1st to develop and use vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague), dies at 70
- Gerty CoriCzech-American biochemist and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1896)
- Elizabeth GunnNew Zealand pediatrician (born 1879)
- Hans KosterlitzGerman-British biochemist (endorphins), dies at 93
- Arthur KornbergAmerican biochemist (1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of DNA polymerase), dies at 89
- Jona SenilagakaliFijian physician and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Fiji (born 1929)