Timeline

Turning points in medical history

1. c. 1550 BCE Knowledge & ideas

   The Ebers Papyrus

   Egyptian remedies, diagnoses, and incantations preserved on a single extraordinary scroll.

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2. c. 450–350 BCE Knowledge & ideas

   The Hippocratic Corpus

   Observation, prognosis, and natural explanation become durable habits of medical writing.

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3. c. 160–200 CE Knowledge & ideas

   Galen’s Medical Synthesis

   Anatomy, philosophy, and therapeutics converge in a system that travels across languages and centuries.

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4. c. 370s Institutions & society

   The First Public Hospitals

   Organised charitable care links religion, civic life, poverty relief, and medical institutions.

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5. c. 750–900 Knowledge & ideas

   Baghdad’s Translation Movement

   Multilingual scholars translate, critique, and extend Greek medicine in Syriac and Arabic.

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6. c. 1025 Knowledge & ideas

   Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine

   A vast, teachable synthesis of physiology, diagnosis, drugs, disease, and treatment.

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7. 1594 Institutions & society

   The Anatomy Theatre of Padua

   Dissection becomes an organised university practice, public lesson, and architectural spectacle.

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8. 1628 Discovery

   The Circulation of the Blood

   William Harvey recasts the heart as a pump driving blood through a continuous circuit.

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9. 1796 Diseases & public health

   Smallpox Vaccination

   Edward Jenner’s experiment helps make prevention a central medical and political project.

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10. 1816 Technology & instruments

    The Stethoscope

    René Laennec turns listening into a formal, instrument-guided diagnostic practice.

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11. 1846 Treatments & inventions

    Ether Anaesthesia

    Pain relief makes longer, more deliberate operations newly possible.

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12. 1847 Diseases & public health

    Semmelweis and Handwashing

    Chlorinated handwashing exposes hospital routine as a source of deadly contamination.

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13. 1860 Institutions & society

    Nightingale Training School

    Nursing becomes a trained discipline bound to sanitation, ward order, and reform.

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14. 1867 Treatments & inventions

    Antiseptic Surgery

    Joseph Lister makes infection control central to the operating theatre.

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15. 1895 Technology & instruments

    The Discovery of X-Rays

    The living body becomes visible from within without an incision.

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16. 1903 Technology & instruments

    The Electrocardiogram

    The heart’s electrical activity becomes a recorded and interpretable trace.

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17. 1921 Treatments & inventions

    Insulin Therapy

    Diabetes changes from a near-certain fatal disease into a manageable condition.

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18. 1928 Treatments & inventions

    Penicillin

    Antibiotic therapy transforms the treatment of bacterial infection.

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19. 1948 Institutions & society

    World Health Organization

    International public health gains a permanent home within the United Nations system.

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20. 1955 Diseases & public health

    The Salk Polio Vaccine

    Mass immunisation joins virology, clinical trials, manufacturing, and public trust.

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21. 1967 Treatments & inventions

    The First Heart Transplant

    Organ replacement brings donors, brain death, rejection, and surgical fame into public debate.

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22. 1978 Treatments & inventions

    The First IVF Birth

    Louise Brown’s birth reshapes infertility treatment and reproductive ethics.

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