Cardiac surgery was revolutionized in the late 1940s, as open-heart surgery was introduced.In 1954 Joseph Murray, J. Hartwell Harrison and others accomplished the first kidney transplantation. Transpl ...
The World Health Organization was founded in 1948 as a United Nations agency to improve global health. In most of the world, life expectancy has improved since then, and was about 67 years as of 2010, ...
First World WarThe ABO blood group system was discovered in 1901, and the Rhesus group in 1937, facilitating blood transfusion.During the 20th century, large-scale wars were attended with medics and m ...
Until the nineteenth century, the care of the insane was largely a communal and family responsibility rather than a medical one. The vast majority of the mentally ill were treated in domestic contexts ...
European ideas of modern medicine were spread widely through the world by medical missionaries, and the dissemination of textbooks. Japanese elites enthusiastically embraced Western medicine after the ...
A major breakthrough in epidemiology came with the introduction of statistical maps and graphs. They allowed careful analysis of seasonality issues in disease incidents, and the maps allowed public he ...
In the American Civil War (1861–65), as was typical of the 19th century, more soldiers died of disease than in battle, and even larger numbers were temporarily incapacitated by wounds, disease and ac ...
After 1871 Berlin, the capital of the new German Empire, became a leading center for medical research. Robert Koch (1843–1910) was a representative leader. He became famous for isolating Bacillus ant ...
The First Viennese School of Medicine, 1750–1800, was led by the Dutchman Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772), who aimed to put medicine on new scientific foundations - promoting unprejudiced clinical ob ...
Paris (France) and Vienna were the two leading medical centers on the Continent in the era 1750–1914.In 1770s-1850s Paris became a world center of medical research and teaching. The "Paris School" em ...
It was very difficult for women to become doctors before the 1970s. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) became the first woman to formally study and practice medicine in the United States. She was a lead ...
Women had always served in ancillary roles, and as midwives and healers. The professionalization of medicine forced them increasingly to the sidelines. As hospitals multiplied they relied in Europe on ...
In the 1830s in Italy, Agostino Bassi traced the silkworm disease muscardine to microorganisms. Meanwhile in Germany, Theodor Schwann led researches on alcoholic fermentation by yeast and proposed tha ...
The practice of medicine changed in the face of rapid advances in science, as well as new approaches by physicians. Hospital doctors began much more systematic analysis of patients' symptoms in diagno ...
In Britain, there were but three small hospitals after 1550. Pelling and Webster estimate that in London in the 1580 to 1600 period, out of a population of nearly 200,000 people, there were about 500 ...
