September 15 in Medical History
16 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Observed today
- World Lymphoma Awareness Day (International)
Events
- Jazz piano prodigy Margaret Johnson (20) makes her only recording, four sides with Billie Holiday in NYC; Johnson dies of tuberculosis less than a year later
- Begin ResignsIsraeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin resigns amid declining health, personal grief, and mounting criticism over the Lebanon War. He is later succeeded by Yitzhak Shamir .
- Body Worlds exhibition opens in Tokyo, Japan
- During a CART race at the Lausitzring in Germany, former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi suffers a heavy accident resulting in him losing both his legs.
- Obama Sends Troops Against EbolaPresident Obama announces the US will send 3,000 troops to help combat spread of the Ebola virus
- US gymnasts, including Simone Biles , testify against former team doctor Larry Nassar at a Senate Committee hearing, criticizing a system that allowed it to happen
Born on this day
- James Gates PercivalAmerican poet, surgeon and geologist (died 1856)
- George Franklin GrantAfrican-American educator, dentist, and inventor (died 1910)
- J. SlauerhoffDutch poet, writer and ship's doctor (El Dorado), born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands (d. 1936)
- Betty NeelsEnglish nurse and author (died 2001)
- Luther Terry9th Surgeon General of the United States (1961-65) warned against smoking, born in Red Level, Alabama (d. 1985)
- Richard GordonEnglish surgeon and author (died 2017)
- Edna Adan IsmailSomali activist and the first qualified-nurse midwife in Somaliland, born in Hargeisa, British Somaliland
- Jo Ann Allen BoyceAmerican pediatric nurse and member of the Clinton 12, born in Clinton, Tennessee (d. 2025)
Died on this day
- Leonhard RauwolfGerman physician and botanist (b. 1535 or 1540)