"Using comparative and developmental approaches he examined dorsal root ganglion cells in the embryos of 18 vertebrate species, and adults of 56 species—using a variety of histological stains, particularly those of Golgi, Cajal, and Ehrlich. A year after it was published, Bardeleben wrote, 'without fear of contradiction, one can say that there has never been such a comprehensive work on the ganglia of the brain and spinal cord' " (Larry W. Swanson).

Includes folios A & B of his anatomical MSS. Text in French and Italian.

An edition and reconstruction of the only 16th century book of erotic engravings and poetry, surviving in a unique copy the original edition. For a summary of the history of this work of art, associated with several artists, see the Wikipedia article, I Modi.

Discovery of artificially produced radionuclides or radioisotopes. In February 1934, the Joliot-Curies reported the first artificial production of radioactive material after discovering radioactivity in aluminum foil that was irradiated with a polonium preparation." Also published in English as "Artificial production of a new kind of radioelement," Nature, 133 (1934) 201.

When only 26 years of age, Panum was sent by the Danish Government to investigate the epidemic of measles then raging in the Faroe Islands. His report on the subject was a valuable contribution to medical literature. A translation of his papers is in Med. Classics, 1939, 3, 829-86. It was also published in translation by the Delta Omega Society, New York, 1940.

Written in verse, this is the first catalogue of a private botanical garden published in France, and the first book that could be called a French catalogue of a natural history museum.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Panaroli described hemolytic jaundice of the newborn.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Ibn-al-Nafis, a Syrian physician, described the lesser circulation in his commentary on the anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna, 1268. This was discovered in three Arabic MSS by Mohyi el Din el Tatawi, who included a German translation in his inaugural dissertation, Der Lungenkreislauf nach el-Koraschi, Freiburg, 1924. According to E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam (1913-1936) p. 95, this dissertation was issued in only 5 manuscript copies. Meyerhof included 29 pages of Arabic text in the above paper, which appears to represent the first appearance of the relevant Arabic text of Ibn-al-Nafis in print. English translations are in Ann. Surg., 1936, 104, 1-8, and in Bull. med. Hist., 1955, 29, 430-40. See John B. West, "Ibn al-Nafis, the pulmonary circulation, and the Islamic Golden Age," J Appl Physiol (1985). 2008 Dec; 105(6): 1877–1880.

The Kitāb al-Musta'īnī by Ibn Biklarish, written in the Moorish Spain province of al-Andalus at the end of the 11th century, includes the first tables of simple medicines written in the region, "concentrating on facing pages for each medicinal substance, all the information transmitted by the treatises on synonyms, substitutes and materia medica. To the practical advantage of rapid consultation—the reader can look up the names of the simple drugs alphabetically—is added the great diversity of the material presented, particularly where the substances of mineral and animal origin are concerned. The Tables, moreover, are preceded by an Introduction in four chapters containing the theories of simple and compound medicines" (Joëlle Ricordel, "The manuscript transmission of the Kitāb al-Musta'īnī...." p. 27 of this edition).

Translated into English by Anna Freud and Cecil Baines, as The ego and the mechanisms of defense. London: Hogarth Press, 1937.

Unna introduced ichthyol and resorcinol into medicine. Supplement to Mh. prakt. Derm., No. 1.

In Rafinesque's polemic style the title page includes the following statement:

"The art of seeing well, or of noticing and distinguishing with accuracy the objects which we perceive, is a high faculty of the mind, unfolded in few individuals, and despised by those who can neither acquire it, nor appreciate its results."

New edition by Richard Ellsworth Call as Ichthyologia Ohiensis or natural history of the fishes inhabiting the river Ohio and its tributary steams. A verbatim et literatim reprint of the original, with a sketch of the life, the ichthyologic work, and the ichthyologic bibliography of Rafinesque (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Co, 1899).

Digital facsimile of the 1820 edition from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

After Artedi's mysterious and premature death by drowning at the age of 30 Linnaeus raised money to pay off Artedi's creditors and obtained his papers. These he published in the present five part work. The five parts are:

I. Bibliotheca Ichthyologica or Historia litteraria Icthyologiae, a chronologically arranged, annotated comprehensive analytical review of previous literature on fishes.

2. Philosophia Ichthyologica: Artedi's philosophy for establishing ichthyology as a science,

3. Genera Piscium, a classification of the fishes recognized by Artedi, containing 52 genera and 242 species.

4. Synonymia specierum, a list of names applicable to each of the species that Artedi recognized.

5. Descriptiones specierum piscium, descriptions of 71 species of fish, plus a whale that Artedi saw in London. 

Alwyne Wheeler, "Peter Artedi, founder of modern ichthyology," Proc. V Congr. europ. Ichtyol. Stockholm, 1985, 3-10. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Accurate and beautiful engravings of the diaphragm, uterus, ovaries, vagina, arteries, with explanatory observations. About fifty years after they were originally published the most visually spectacular versions of Haller's plates of the arteries were issued in reduced format brilliantly hand-colored in Anatomical plates of the arteries of the human body, accurately coloured, and reduced from the Icones of Haller: With a concise explanation (London: E. Cox, 1808). Digital facsimile of the original Latin edition from the Max Planck Institute of the History of Science at this link.

"Although a few more reports were published furing the next hundred years [after Tyson] it was Tiedemann alone who gave a more detailed account, on monkeys, in his... Icones Simiarum.... In monkeys he found the brain shorter, the sulci shallower, and both sulci and gyri far fewer than in the human brain....in monkeys, as also in the ape, he observed greater symmetry and regularity of the convolutional pattern than is generally seen in man (Meyer, Historical aspects of cerebral anatomy, 142). Digital facsimile of the 1821 edition from Google Books at this link.

Soemmerring met William Hunter during a visit to London in 1778. The latter’s classic work on the pregnant uterus (No. 6157) dealt only with the latter half of pregnancy. Soemmerring therefore decided, in a supplementary volume, to deal with the appearance of the embryo during the first half of pregnancy. This book is one of the best illustrated of Soemmerring’s works.

Camper illustrated his own work, and was an outstanding anatomical artist. His illustrations of hernias are of great value.

Discussion of various specimens in the anatomical museum of  Medical Faculty of the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, highlighting a number of embryological, teratological and obstetrical items, some of which are illustrated. Digital facsimile from Universität Bonn at this link.

French translation, 1976.

This work and that of Ammon (No. 5852) remain the greatest preophthalmoscopic atlases of ophthalmology.

A photographic atlas devoted to cases of hysteria and epilepsy, with case histories; the third volume includes discussions of hypnotism, somnambulism and magnetism. Bourneville was Charcot’s assistant at the Salpêtrière from 1870-79. The plates in v. 1 are mounted photographs (albumen prints) with letterpress captions; the plates in v. 2-3 are collotypes with letterpress captions. All of the plates, which depict patients at La Salpêtrière, are from photographs by Bourneville and Regnard. Title-page vignettes: (v.1: mounted albumen print; v. 2-3: collotypes). Digital facsimile of vol. 1 from Google Books at this link; of vol. 2 from the Internet Archive at this link, and of vol. 3 from the Internet Archive at this link.

Continued in the Nouvelle iconographie, No. 4575. For an analysis of this see No. 8068

Contains 70 photographs of brain sections taken by Luys himself, with 64 lithographed schemas based on his drawings. Luys undertook this work when the evidence of his lithographs published in 1865 (No. 4012) was disputed. It is the first large-scale photographic atlas of the anatomy of the brain.

“Widal-Abrami disease” (Hayem-Widal disease), acquired hemolytic anemia. (See also No. 3777.)

Dr. Lürman, a general practitioner in Bremen, was first to report homologous serum hepatitis. English translation in Human viral hepatitis, by A. J. Zuckerman, 2nd ed., New York, 1972, pp. 4-10.

Contains first reference to experimental work on the motor functions of the ventral spinal nerve-roots, without, however, establishing the sensory functions of the dorsal roots. This very rare privately printed pamphlet, the original edition was limited to 100 copies, is reproduced in Medical Classics, 1936, 1, 105-20. Facsimile reprint, London, 1966. Bell’s own annotated copy, preserved in the library of The Royal Society, is reproduced in Cranefield, The Way In and the Way Out: François Magendie, Charles Bell and the Roots of the Spinal Nerves, Mt. Kisco, N.Y., Futura Publishing, 1974. See No. 1588.9. Cranefield proves that Magendie (No. 1256) discovered the “Bell-Magendie law”.

Perhaps the oldest separate work on the psychological development of children, written five years after Grohmann published a work on the education of children. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Herder’s history has long been regarded as a very strong statement of Darwinian evolution before Darwin: many single passages come close to the evolution theory. Among the passages most often regarded as anticipating Darwin are those on the temporal sequence of forms from simpler to more highly organized, and on the overabundance of nature with the ensuing struggle for existence between species and individuals.

Dupont proposed replacing large city hospitals with smaller institutions similar to those then being tried in England. Du Pont studied medicine before devoting himself to political economy. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Deng, Liu, Ellmeier.... This paper was immediately followed in the same issue of Nature by:

Tatjana Dragic, Virginia Litwin, Graham P. Allaway et al. "HIV-1 entry into CD4+ cells is mediated by the chemokine receptor CC-CKR-5," Nature, 381, 667-673.

What was called CC-CKR-5 in the Dragic, Litwin, Allaway paper was later named CCR5. These two papers laid the theory and the foundation behind the purposeful and targeted search for bone marrow donors with this mutation that finally achieved success 13 years later in Gero Hütter et al GM 10775 ("Long-term control of HIV by CCR5 Delta32/Delta32 stem-cell transplantation", 2009). 

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Steinman, Cohn. In this paper Steinman announced his discovery of the dendritic cell. For the discovery of this cell and its role in adaptive immunity Steinman shared the Nobel Prize in 2011. Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Pritt, Mead, Johnson. Discovery of Lyme Borreliosis or Borrelia mayonii, a new variant of B. burgdorferi.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Research with the biochemist Bolton enabled Prusiner to discover and characterize the specific protein causing prion disease. This paper was dated December 24, 1982.

Nearly simultaneously, Prusiner and the same co-authors published an additional, longer paper dated December 21, 1982, further characterizing the pure protein of the infectious agent:

"Further purification and characterization of Scrapie prions," Biochemistry, 21 (1982) 6942-6950. 

These papers provided the necessary evidence to convince members of the scientific community, and eventually led to Prusiner's Nobel Prize.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for these references and their interpretation.)

Blackburn and Grieder discovered telomerase in the ciliate Tetrahymena. For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase, Blackburn and Grieder, along with Jack W. Szostak, were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Dated December 16, 1994. Order of authorship in the original paper was Chang, Cesarman, Pessin,...Moore. The authors reported a new human herpesvirus associated with Kaposi's sarcoma, and gave it the descriptive name KSHV (Kaposi's Sarcoma Herpes Virus). Digital facsimile from tumorvirology.pitt.edu at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Second edition by Ortner as sole author (2003).

Adie’s description of narcolepsy is called “maladie d’Adie” by some French writers.

First description of “Kaposi’s sarcoma” – multiple idiopathic hemorrhagic sarcoma. English translation in CA, 1982, 32, 342-47.

Probably the first separate publication on the diseases of printers and typesetters. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first treatise on feigned diseases.

Platner affirmed the tuberculous nature of humpback, which had earlier been surmised by Hippocrates and confirmed by Galen.

Alfanus I or Alfano I, a physician before he became archbishop, was one of the earliest doctors of the Schola Medica Salernitana. He was Archbishop of Salerno from 1058 to his death. He was famed as a translator, writer, theologian, and medical doctor. Alfanus translated many manuscripts from the Arabic. His interest in medicine and the translation of Arabic treatises led him to invite Constantine the African from Carthage (in what is now Tunisia) to Salerno to assist him. Constantine brought with him a library of Arabic medical texts which he commenced to translate into Latin.

Luciani succeeded in keeping dogs alive after total extirpation of the cerebellum, and initiated the modern study of cerebellar function. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

An entirely etched book of 40 leaves, drawn and etched by Fialetti, this was probably the first printed manual on drawing the human body, as distinct from earlier manuals on anatomy for artists. For further information see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link. Digital facsimile from the Getty Research institute, Internet Archive, at this link.

Announcement of the discovery of Haemophilus ducreyi (Ducrey’s bacillus), causal organism in chancroid.

A cultural history of illness from the standpoint of how gender determined perceptions and experiences of illness in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England.

Second edition as Jablonski’s Dictionary of syndromes and eponymic diseases, Malabar, Fl., Krieger, 1989.

Vistor's guide to the museum, including the collections formed by John Hunter, when it was intact, before the destruction it suffered in World War II. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First edition, Oxford, 1985.

1077 pages.

Concentrates on 19th century developments.

Reprints selected portions of the 1913 A. A. Brill translation together essays by Masson and excerpts from Jung, Lacan, and Horney. Includes many full page or double-page color reproductions of works by modernist and surrealist artists; Masson's sidebars appear as booklets “hidden” in the full-spread artwork.

Snowden & Brother provided an excellent selection of the exact types of equipment used by the Union Army during the Civil War. Facsimile reprint, with John Weiss & Son 1863 catalogue, with a new introduction by James M. Edmonson, entitled Surgical and dental instrument catalogues from the Civil War era (San Francisco: Norman Publishing in association with The National Museum of Health and Medicine Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 1997).

Text in Chinese and English. A very accessible illustrated popularization— almost in the style of a comic book— of the Yellow Emperor's classic.

Place was the first important proponent of birth control in any English speaking country. The above work openly advocates contraception, though without indicating how it was to be achieved. Reprinted with additional material collected by N.E. Himes, London, 1930.

Vol. 1 pp. 49-52: Hutchinson’s classic description of cheiropompholyx, dysidrosis (“Hutchinson’s disease”). The first description and illustration of sarcoidosis is on p. 42.

Large folio, with 94 hand-colored lithographed plates by Archibald Henning (1805-64).

The first medical book devoted to a single case of insanity, and the first illustration of an influencing machine, commonly complained of by paranoid patients.

Morton published an important collection of illustrations delineating pulmonary tuberculosis which epitomized the knowledge of his time. It was also the first book on the subject published in the United States. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine, Internet Archive at this link.

Originally issued in ten parts from 1853 to 1855. Cassin ran an engraving and lithographing firm in Philadelphia, which produced illustrations for government and scientific publications. He pursued ornithology as an amateur, devoting his spare time as unpaid curator of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, which was developing the largest bird specimen collection then in existence. He arranged and catalogued 26,000 specimens, and published regular reports of the results of his research. In this work Cassin described species discovered since the appearance of Audubon's Birds of America. Digital facsimile of the 1862 printing from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Includes one of the earliest descriptions of hyperplastic cystic disease of the breast, which Cooper referred to as “hydatid disease”.

Carswell was Professor of Morbid Anatomy at University College, London, and one of the leading English pathologists of his day. A fine artist, he personally painted 2,000 water-colours of pathological specimens. His great pathological atlas contains splendid hand-coloured lithographs which he selected from his collection of water-colours and personally drew on stone. Among the many pathologies illustrated was one of the first images of multiple sclerosis.

One of the most dramatically and beautifully illustrated works in the entire literature of surgery. Hand-colored copies show more blood than is usual for surgical treatises of this period. From publication in fascicules, 1820-21. A second, undated issue appeared circa 1830. One of the images of shows an operation done on the head of a black man. This may be the earliest depiction of a black person in a medical work.

Lauterbur proposed a workable method for using nuclear magnetic resonance to produce images of tissues.

Images with detailed captions documenting the development of this institution.

Finely produced and illustrated collection, with many plates in color, of 36 scholarly essays on the widest range of Chinese medical illustrations, including erotica.

Described imbrication of flaps in hernia repairs.

Synthesis of methimazole (mercazole, thiamazole), an antithyroid drug more potent than methylthiouracil. With E. C. Kornfeld, K. C. McLaughlin, and R. C. Anderson.

Portable transfusion apparatus.

Nelson’s treponemal immobilization test.

Successful immunization against poliomyelitis with a living attenuated virus vaccine. With G. A. Jervis and T. W. Norton.

Besredka’s vaccine, sensitized vaccine. English translation, Baltimore, 1927.

Artificial immunity to diphtheria produced in guinea-pigs by injection of attenuated cultures of the bacillus. Fraenkel's account appeared one day before the  paper of Behring and Kitasato. Behring, Die Geschichte der Diphtherie, recounts the history.

A classic study of the mechanisms concerned in specific antibacterial immunity, and one of Metchnikoff’s best works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908. Russian edition: Nevospriimchivost’ k infekcionnim boleznyam. St. Petersburg: K.L. Rikker, 1903. English translation, London, 1905. Digital facsimile of 1901 edition from bnf.gallica at this link.

With E. P. Maris, and L. W. Kane.

Arrhenius defined immunochemistry, and laid out its frontiers.

Irwin coined the term, “immunogenetics” to describe the union of immunology with genetics. He attempted to determine the genetic control of antigenicity through genetic cross matings.

Miller demonstrated the immunological function of the thymus.

Citations, with paginations, of 3480 items. Author and subject indices

A classic on immunofluorescence of the skin.

First radioimmunoassay of a hormone, a test capable of estimating nonogram or even picogram quantities. For this technique Yalow shared the 1977 Nobel Prize with R. Guillemin and A. Schally.

Mead formulated the position that periodic atmospheric tides arising from planetary forces produced alterations of gravity, elasticity, and air pressure; these changes, he argued, affected the human body in health and disease. Mesmer's disseration, which originated animal magnetism, was largely a plagiarism of Mead's work. Translated into English by Thomas Stack "under the author's inspection" as A treatise concerning the influence of the sun and moon upon human bodies, and the diseases thereby produced (London, 1748).

Digital facsimile of the 1704 edition from Google Books at this link, of the English translation at this link. See Frank A. Pattie, "Mesmer's medical dissertation and its debt to Mead's De imperio solis ac lunae," Journal of the History of Medicine & Allied Sciences, (1956) 275-287. 

Although not the first to describe this condition, Kaposi established its status.

"This is the original report of the first fully implantable pacemaker that was designed by Elmqvist and surgically inserted under the skin of a patient in October 1958. It is an abstract of their presentation that signalled (along with events in Minneapolis) the birth of the modern pacemaker industry" (W. Bruce Fye).

The Greenfield implant system, also known as the Greenfield crib or basket, was one of earliest sucessful dental implants. It consisted of an irioplatinum implant attached to a gold crown. The implant lasted for a number of years, and showed evidence of what would later be called osseointegration.

Demonstration of the importance of tryptophan in diet. The pioneer work of Hopkins led eventually to the discovery of vitamins.

Leiper discovered diurnal periodicity in Filaria Loa, as the worm embryos are found in the blood only during day, as an adaptation to the day-biting habits of their insect vector, a biting fly of the genus Chrysopa. This discovery was published in a single paragraph written by the editor of JAMA.  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Digital edition available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230742/ .

Absorbed fluorescent treponemal antibody (FTA-ABS) test. With W. E. Deacon and P. E. Meyer.  The text is available from the NLM PubMedCentral at this link.

Lumbar encephalography. In 1937 the authors published a monograph on the subject entitled The normal encephalogram. After Dyke's premature death in 1943 Davidoff collaborated with radiologist Bernard S. Epstein (1908-1978) on a follow-up monograph entitled The abnormal pneumoencephalogram (1950). Davidoff was the only Jewish resident that Harvey Cushing trained.

Lempert’s fenestration operation.

The observations of Adrian and Zotterman on the response of single sensory end-organs to a natural stimulus led them to formulate their conception of “adaptation” of receptors to stimuli.

McCrae's poem, In Flanders Fields, was among the most popular poems of World War I. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. 

In Flanders Fields was one of the most quoted poems from the war. As a result of its popularity, parts of the poem were used in efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict. The poem and poppy are prominent Remembrance Day symbols throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly in Canada, where "In Flanders Fields" is one of the nation's best-known literary works. 

A Canadian, McCrae received his M.D. from the University of Toronto in 1898. The following year he spent several months at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where his older brother Thomas was an assistant resident physician on Osler's medical service. In July 1914 McCrae sailed from Canada to France to serve as a medical officer. In 1918, while commanding the McGill Hospital at Boulogne, he died of pneumonia and meningitis.

Ingrassia is by some accredited with the discovery of the stapes; he also observed the sound-conducting capacity of the teeth.

This work not only updated the species listed by Dioscorides, but also listed about 500 new species of plants. Published posthumously, the work was carefully edited by Conrad Gesner.  

Cordus was the inventor of phytography and the discoverer of ethyl (sulphuric) ether. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Paul of Aegiina was the most famous physician and surgeon in the Byzantine Empire during the seventh century, and probably thereafter. According to Eugene F. Rice, "Paulus Aegineta", Catalogus translationum et commentariorum IV (1980) p. 146, more codices of his works prior to the 13th century survived than any other Greek texts except the Bible and some patristic works, indicating that Paul's writings continued to be recopied and widely read. Paul gave original descriptions of lithotomy, trephining, tonsillectomy, paracentesis and amputation of the breast. The first clear description of the effects of lead poisoning also comes from him, indicating that lead poisoning was known in antiquity.

The work also contains extensive discussion of oral health including preservatives of teeth and dentrifices, affections and inflammations of the teeth and gums, on loosening teeth and removing them, on tongue-tied afflictions, and fracture of the jaws.

Paul's work, which did not have a formal title, was first published in print in the original Greek by the Aldine Press in 1528, edited by F. Torresani [Asulanus]. The manuscript on which Torresani based his text was copied by the scribe Manuel Pancratios in 1312. It is preserved in the Bibliòtheque Nationale de France (Par. gr. 2210), and bears Torresano's ownership inscription.

Three Latin translations were published in 1532. The first, entitled Opus divinum was translated from the Aldine edition by A. Torinus, and published by A. Cratander. It included books 1-5 and 7. The second, entitled De medica materia… published in Venice by L. Giunta, included the sixth book on surgery. The third, entitled Opus de re medica, published in Paris by S. de Colines, was based on a new, improved text and included all seven books in the translation of Johann Guinter von Andernach. 

The first reported case of asbestosis was observed by Murray at Charing Cross Hospital, London, in 1899 and reported to the Committee (Report, p. 14: Minutes of Evidence, p. 127) in 1907.

"With chapters on 25 different countries, this practical and succinct guide to the world's major health systems explores what lessons can be drawn from each to improve health worldwide. Each chapter is an essay designed to give the reader essential knowledge of the history, strengths, weaknesses and lessons of each health system and provide a truly global health perspective – all in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee" (Publisher).

English translation of 2nd ed. by Edwin Ray Lankester as On animal and vegetable parasites of the human body: A manual of their natural history, diagnosis, and treatment. 2 vols. London: Sydenham Society, 1857. Digital facsimile of the 1855 edition from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link, of the English translation at this link.

Nitrofuran (nitrofurazone).

First in vitro fertilization of human eggs.

Agar gel immunodiffusion.

Thirty-two chapters devoted to all aspects and some key moments in the history of IVF, together with histories of the development of the science around the world.

This graduation dissertation was the first published brochure on cerebrospinal meningitis.  Digital facsimile from U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Garrod established chemical individuality as a paradigm of Mendelian variation. His study, which he began around the turn of the 20th century, coincided with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of inheritance in 1900. He realized that alkaptonuria (black urine disease) behaves like one of Mendel's recessive genetic traits, and guessed that people with alkaptonuria have a defective gene that produces a faulty enzyme that interrupts an important metabolic pathway. This was the first recognition of the possibility that genes direct the assembly of enzymes, and more specifically, that each gene codes for one enzyme. Over the next few years, Garrod discovered three more metabolic diseases that behave like recessive traits, including albinism. He showed that constitutional variation in function, as well as in structure, can give rise to what he termed “chemical malformations” – alkaptonuria, cystinuria, pentosuria, etc. The book was based on his Croonian Lectures, published in Lancet, 1908, 2, 1-7, 142-8, 173-9, 214-20. A second edition appeared in 1923. It was reprinted with supplement by H. Harris, London, 1963. Garrod’s first paper on the subject dealt with alkaptonuria (Lancet, 1901, 2, 1484-6).

Garrod argued that chemical individuality could result in individuals having a predisposition to certain diseases. This view has become particularly significant in light of the establishment of recombinant DNA methods to identify inherited genetic defects. Reprint with epilogue by C.R. Scriver and B. Childs, and bibliography of Garrod’s writings, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989.

Digital facsimile from Hathi Trust at this link.

Leukemia was the first cancer to be linked with radiation exposure in atomic bomb survivors.

“Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia”.

Bibliographical Society Publication. Based on Osler’s presidential address to the Bibliographical Society in 1914, with minor editing for posthumous publication by Archibald Malloch and W. W. Francis. Introduction by A. W. Pollard. The work opens with an essay by Osler citing many early printed medical texts, including a detailed discussion of the earliest bloodletting calendars, showing the influence of the invention of printing upon the dissemination of medieval medical information. Next follows a descriptive list of 217 medical books printed to 1480. This list was edited, with an Editor's Note, by bibliographer Victor Scholderer. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

3,000 editions of 1,000 incunabula. Reprinted from Osiris, vol.IV. Reprinted, Hildesheim, 1963.

https://data.cerl.org/istc/_search

The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) , an electronic bibliographic database maintained by the British Library, seeks to catalogue all known incunabula. The database lists books by individual editions, recording standard bibliographic details for each edition as well as providing a census of known copies, organized by location. It currently holds records of about 30,000 editions. Work on the ISTC began in 1980 under the leadership of the British Library's Lotte Hellinga. Frederick R. Goff's Incunabula in American Libraries (1973) was the first pre-existing catalog to be keyed into ISTC's database. Besides providing the catalog's first 12,900 entries, Goff's system for classifying information about incunables formed the basis for the structure of ISTC's records. Entries for all of the incunables in British Library and the Italian union catalog (IGI) were added next, followed by other national incunable catalogs.

"The database records nearly every item printed from movable type before 1501, but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. 30,518 editions are listed as of August 2016, including some 16th-century items previously assigned incorrectly to the 15th century.

"Information on each item includes authors, short titles, the language of the text, printer, place and date of printing, and format. Locations for copies have been confirmed by libraries all over the world. Many links are provided to online digital facsimiles, and also to major online catalogues of incunabula such as the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog and Bod-Inc online.

"A number of copies recorded in ISTC are now described in detail in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database. In due course, links will be added from the copies recorded in ISTC to their descriptions in MEI" (https://data.cerl.org/istc/_search).

"The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue is the international database of 15th-century European printing created by the British Library with contributions from institutions worldwide. http://data.cerl.org/istc/_search

"You can:

• perform a simple search using different kinds of keywords
• find items by browsing author, title, dates, and other headings

"The database records nearly every item printed from movable type before 1501, but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. 30,518 editions are listed as of August 2016, including some 16th-century items previously assigned incorrectly to the 15th century. Information on each item includes authors, short titles, the language of the text, printer, place and date of printing, and format. Locations for copies have been confirmed by libraries all over the world. Many links are provided to online digital facsimiles, and also to major online catalogues of incunabula such as the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog and Bod-Inc online.

"A number of copies recorded in ISTC are now described in detail in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database. In due course, links will be added from the copies recorded in ISTC to their descriptions in MEI" (http://data.cerl.org/istc/_search, accessed 12-2016).

Hansen discovered the leprosy bacillus on 28 February 1873. He had been stimulated by the previous work of Danielssen and Boeck, and his own demonstration of the leprosy bacillus is one of the earliest observations of pathogenic bacteria. For an English translation of the paper see Brit. for. med. -chir. Rev., 1875, 55, 459-89.

DNA shown to be the carrier of genetic information in virus reproduction. Hershey shared the Nobel Prize in 1969 with S. E. Luria and M. Delbrück.

There have been several supplements, etc. "This index contains the entire vocabulary (with the exception of the article and a few particles) of the complete writings constituting the Corpus Hippocraticum. Quotations are in agreement with the edition by E. Littré, which still is the most important edition to date and has frequently been reprinted. Also incorporated were several texts not included in Littré’s edition and those lemmata from the glossaries of Erotianus and Galenus which are not preserved in the Hippocratic writings. But most importantly the material has been supplemented and corrected by means of a systematic evalution of the most recent critical editions and a re-examination of the original manuscripts. This approach combines two advantages: A standardized form of the quotations in accordance with Littré’s edition is coupled with abundant information on the tradition of all the writings, especially those which, until now, have not been republished in a critical edition. – With regard to the presentation of the material the index maintains a balance between a rigid concordance and a dictionary. Organizational principles of primary importance are the grammatical categories and varitations in the meanings of the words; additionally characteristic word combinations ans noteworthy dialectal forms are given particular attention while uncommon words are furnished with a Latin translation. The work is prefaced with an objective introduction in German containing, among other data, a complete list of the Hippocratic writings together with information on their tradition, their different editions, and where possible, their chronology." (http://www.v-r.de/en/index_hippocraticus_cui_elaborando_interfuerunt_sodales_thesauri_linguae_graecae_hamburgensis/sd-2/376, accessed 01-2017).

The first part, by Horn and Schenkling, was privately published by Horn in 4 vols., 1928-29. The second part, by Derksen and Göllner-Scheiding, was published by the Akademie der Lanwirtschafwissenschaften der DDR in 5 vols, 1963-75.

"Functionally, however, the greatest difference between the two publications [Index Medicus and the Index-Catalogue] was that the Index-Catalogue was a government publication and Index Medicus was not. For its entire run, the Index-Catalogue was published by the Surgeon-General's Office of the US Army, while Index Medicus was privately published by a series of small publishers, who had difficulty making the work profitable. In this period (1879–1926), the Index-Catalogue had a secure source of funding, while Index Medicus was expected to be self-supporting. As Billings wrote in his introduction to the first volume of Index Medicus:

It has often been suggested that it is highly desirable that [the Index-Catalogue] should be supplemented by some current publication, which should show all recent works, together with articles in periodicals, arranged by subjects [emphasis in the original], but until quite lately no proper means have been available for such an undertaking. Now, however, Mr. F. Leypoldt, of New York City, proposes to undertake the publication of such a current medical bibliographical serial.

"The role of Leypoldt has been described in different ways, but it is undeniable that, between 1879 and 1926, Index Medicus had a number of publishers, including Leypoldt in New York, George Davis in Boston, and the Carnegie Foundation in Washington. There was even a period (1899–1902) when publication of Index Medicus ceased and was briefly replaced by a Paris publication called the Bibliographica Medica. There were also years, such as 1895–1899, when the title page mysteriously read only “Published by the Editors, New York and Boston.” Sometimes (as in 1879), publishers were listed for London, Paris, Leipzig, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg, and would-be contributors were advised to submit their publications to these Europeans offices for inclusion in Index Medicus. A certain collection development objective is implied here: the introductory letter already cited made it clear that, after indexing, the publications would be added to the collections of the library" (S. J. Greenberg & P. E. Gallagher, "The great contribution: Index Medicus, Index-Catalogue, and IndexCat," J. Med. Libr. Assoc. 97(2009) 108–113).

A second series, edited by Fletcher and F. H. Garrison, vols. 1-6, 1921-27. In 1927 the Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Medical Literature (12 vols., 1916-26) was amalgamated with the Index Medicus to form Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus (1927-56) which, with No. 6777, was superseded in 1960 by a new monthly Index Medicus with an annual Cumulated Index Medicus. The gap 1900-02 was partly filled by Bibliographia Medica, 3 vols., Paris, 1900-1903, and by Index Medicus Novus, Vienna, Nos. 1-12, 1899; Nos. 1-3, 1900. The first three series of Index Medicus were reprinted New York, Johnson Reprint, 1967. Bibliographia Medica was reprinted New York, Johnson Reprint, 1972.

http://sdei.senckenberg.de/index/index.php

"This database is a completely revised new edition of the "Index Litteraturae Entomologicae : Serie I : Die Welt-Literatur über die gesamte Entomologie bis inclusive 1863" published by Walther Horn und Sigmund Schenkling in 1928-1929. The most important new features are:

• the original 25,229 citations (Horn & Schenkling 1928) have been increased to over 46,500; the extra data result from resolution of highly condensed original entries or are new;
• over 11,300 authors, artists, engravers, etc. have been recorded separately, thus supporting searches with various spellings of the name and connecting the bibliography with the biographies;
• over 10,300 journals, publishers etc., (called ‘sources’) have been recorded separately, thus supporting searches with various spellings of the title; dating information is included and titles are given in full;
• parts of works, other editions, addenda, translations, etc. were cross-referenced;
• Publication dates of the works have been revised based on secondary sources (see references);
• the citations can be exported in text format or BibTex format;
• users can comment on each citation and contribute to improving the database."

The first edition extended to more than 1000 pages. It had reached its 16th edition by 2016. Digital facsimile of the New York 1912 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Retrospective from 1839; discontinued in 1969. Later known as Index to dental literature. Digital facsimile of the early volumes from the Hathi Trust at this link. Black spearheaded the project and supervised the compilation of its early volumes.

Upon his appointment as professor of medicine and botany at Leiden University in 1709, Boerhaave became head of the botanical garden, a laboratory for materia medica. He published his first catalogue of plants in the garden in 1710, and added more than two thousand species by the second edition in 1720, reflecting his extensive additions to the garden. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

An listing of 431 medical museum specimens, including those preserved in liquid as well as dried specimens, prepared for their sale.  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The beautiful catalogue of the shell collection formed by Gualtieri, physician to Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany in his "museum."  Many of the shells are depicted standing on their apices, and are depicted from two sides, showing the complete surface. Gualtieri's collection is preserved in the Museo Storia Naturale in Pisa.

This is an index to a series of 5 offprints by Mestler entitled "A galaxy of old Japanese medical books with miscellaneous notes on early medicine in Japan" published in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association from 1954-57. Copies of the offprints are bound after the index. They are as follows:

Pt. I. Medical history and biography. General works. Anatomy. Physiology and pharmacology. Bull. Med. Lib. Ass., 42 (1954) 287-327.

Pt. II. Acupuncture and moxibusion. Bathing. Balneotherapy and massage. Nursing, pediatrics and hygiene. Obstetrics and gynecology. Ibid, 42, 468-500.

Pt. III. Urology, syphilology and dermatology. Surgery and pathology. Ibid, 44 (1956) 125-159.

Pt. IV. Ophthalmology, psychiatry, dentistry. Ibid, 44, 327-347

Pt. V. Biblio-historical addenda. Corrections. Postscript. Acknowledgments. Ibid, 45, 164-219

Divided into author and subject sections.

Digital facsimile from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

Vol. 1 contains over 10,000 and vol. 2 over 7,000 references to books and papers. Vol. 1 edited by W. Artelt, vol. 2 edited by J. Steudel. Covers the years 1945-48 and 1949-52.

An index to the world's literature on parasites and parasitisms of man, of domestic animals, and of wild animals whose parasites may be transmitted to man and domestic animals. It also contains references to fur-bearing animals, wild life, and to free-living and plant parasitic nematodes or roundworms, which impact food or forage crops. The index eventually extended to about 100 volumes, and around 20,000 pages, in about 30 languages.

The Texas A&M University Medical Sciences Library and the Oklahoma State University Libraries partnered to digitize the Index-Catalogue of Medical and Veterinary Zoology (ICVMZ), and made it available online at this link.

In 1836 Surgeon General Joseph Lovell established a small collection of medical books for the use of his staff. This was the origin of the “Surgeon General’s Library.” John Shaw Billings did much to develop the library; he planned and started the Index Catalogue, the first large-scale subject index of any library, and the first truly comprehensive subject index of the published literature any science. Four years prior to the beginning of publication of the Index Catalogue Billings issued a Specimen Fasciculus of a Catalogue of the National Medical Library Under the Direction of the Surgeon-General, United States Army (Washington, 1876). In addition to showing the ambitious nature of his cataloguing plans, the fasciculus shows that Billings viewed the Library of the Surgeon General's Office as a national medical library. Series 1-4 indexes about 3,000,000 books, journal articles, and pamphlets. In the 5th series only monographs and theses are included. For continuation see Nos. 6784, 6786.9. In 1952 the name of the library was changed to Armed Forces Medical Library; it became the National Library of Medicine in 1956. See S. J. Greenberg & P. E. Gallagher, "The great contribution: Index Medicus, Index-Catalogue, and IndexCat," J. Med. Libr. Assoc. 97 (2009) 108–113.

The Index-catalogue is available online from the National Library of Medicine at this link.

This is an extensively revised and enlarged second edition of Piso’s Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648). In this edition Piso reprinted Bontius's De medicina Indorum (1642) with two additional books on Asian flora and fauna. Piso introduced ipecacuanha into Europe. Reproduced in part, with translation, in Opuscula Selecta Neerlandicorum de Arte Medica, 1937, No. 14. See Nos. 2263.1 & 5303. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Stacke introduced the operation of excision of the ossicles.

First radical thoracoplasty.

Supplements 1-5, 1952-62.

The first anatomical text by an Englishman, but only a very brief account of 15 pages. The only known copy of the original edition is in the British Library. Edwardes made the first recorded dissection in England (1531). See David Edwardes introduction to anatomy 1532. A facsimile reproduction with English translation and an Introductory essay on anatomical studies in tudor England by C.D. O'Malley and K.F. Russell (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961).  See also biographical note by A. Rook and M. Newbold, Med. Hist., 1975, 19, 389.

The first color-illustrated book on Hawaiian flora. "The following collection of flowers was made upon the islands of Kauai and Niihau, the most northern of the Hawaiian archipelago. It is not by any means a large collection, considering that the flowering plants of the islands are said by naturalists to exceed four hundred varieties. But this enumeration was made some years ago, and it is probable that many plants have become extinct since then." (preface). Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Expensively produced, and sold in both standard and large paper subscriber editions, Nott and Gliddon's work was one of the most egregiously racist publications in the history of physical anthropology. Nott, a prominent Southern physician, was a member of Samuel George Morton's American School of Anthropology, which held that that the different races of humankind represented separate species with separate, ancient origins predating the Biblical "creation." Polygenist arguments about race were particularly attractive in the antebellum South, as they provided support for slavery without overtly contradicting the Bible's account of the creation. One of the most outrageous of these arguments (by our standards) was Agassiz's correlation of the geographical distribution of monkeys with that of the "inferior" (i.e., non-white) races of man, an idea further developed by Gliddon in a fold-out chart. This chart, as well as the large folding "Ethnographic Tableau" at the front of the book, are hand-colored in the subscriber's edition; in the regular small-paper edition they are uncolored. Digital facsimile  of a "Subscriber's Copy" from the Internet Archive at this link.

Idiotypes. With M. Mannik and R.C. Williams. Kunkel and his team discovered idiotypy independently of Jacques Oudin and Philip Gell.

Genetic recombination in bacteriophages. Delbrück shared the Nobel Prize with A. D. Hershey and S. E. Luria in 1969 for his work on replication mechanisms and genetic structure of viruses.

Test for recognition of the estrus hormone.

Sodium amytal (Amobarbitol).  With J. T. C. McCallum, H. A. Shonle, E. E. Swanson, J. B. Scott, and G. H. A. Clowes.

Isolation of polymavirus (papovavirus). With B. E. Eddy, A. M. Gochenour, N. G. Borgese, and G E. Grubbs.

Smith was able to induce precocious sexual maturity in mice and rats by the implantation of pituitary tissue.

Includes information on asbestosis.

Legge was the first Medical Inspector of Factories and Workshops in the United Kingdom, appointed in 1898.

Probably the first history of occupational medicine in any part of the United States. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

https://www.library.ucsf.edu/industry-documents/

"The Industry Documents Library (IDL) provides public access to internal corporate documents to facilitate research about cross-industry practices that harm public health....

"Truth Tobacco Industry Documents: Search over 14 million documents about the tobacco industry’s advertising, manufacturing, marketing, scientific research and political activities.

"Among the most far-reaching effects of the modern environmental movement was the widespread acknowledgment that human beings were inescapably part of a larger ecosystem." This book provides a "history of “ecological” ideas of the body as that history unfolded in California’s Central Valley. Taking us from nineteenth-century fears of miasmas and faith in wilderness cures to the recent era of chemical pollution and cancer clusters, Nash charts how Americans have connected their diseases to race and place as well as dirt and germs. In this account, the rise of germ theory and the pushing aside of an earlier environmental approach to illness constituted not a clear triumph of modern biomedicine but rather a brief period of modern amnesia. As Nash shows us, place-based accounts of illness re-emerged in the postwar decades, galvanizing environmental protest against smog and toxic chemicals" (publisher).

J. R. Goodall, F. O. Anderson, G. T. Altimas, and F. L. MacPhail pointed out the possibility of using placental blood for transfusion purposes.

Freud gave an excellent description of the various forms of cerebral palsy, with precise classification of the different spastic symptoms; he also mentioned the extra-pyramidal symptoms. This work forms Bd. IX, II Theil, II Abt. of H. Nothnagel’s Specielle Pathologie und Therapie.  Translated into English by Lester A. Russin as Infantile cerebral paralysis (Coral Gables: University of Florida Press, 1968.)

Classic account of pituitary infantilism.

Brissaud described thyroid infantilism.

The first printed book dealing exclusively with pediatrics. This was also the first medical treatise, and probably also the first scientific treatise, to make its original appearance in printed form rather than having prior circulation in manuscript. It is also one of the two first books published in print by a living author, the other being Valturio's De re militari (1472). 

The book was based mainly on the writings of Avicenna and Rhazes. It appeared in facsimile in Sudhoff’s Erstlinge (see No. 6355), and there is a translation by H.F. Wright in J. F. Ruhräh’s Pediatrics of the past, 1925 (No.6354). ISTC no. ib00010000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

Cultivation of rabies virus in the chick embryo. Soon afterwards I. J. Kligler and H. Bernkopf, Nature, 1939, 143, 899, made a similar report.

Wherry and Lamb were first to isolate P. tularensis from lesions in man.

Order of authorship in the original paper was Persing, Herwaldt, Glaser. First report of a Basisa duncani infection in humans (4 patients). The authors designated the infection as Babesia (WA1) strain transmitted by Ixodes pacificus, the west coast species name for Ixodes dammini, vector of babesiosis on the East coast. Available from nejm.org at this link. 

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

The first comprehensive treatise on hand surgery, and the classic work on tendon and bursal hand spaces relevant to management of hand infections. Kanavel developed the method of forcible injection of radio-opaque material into tendon sheaths and fascial spaces of the hand; this enabled him to find a definite and constant pattern in the way that infectious material spread from sheath to space, and to drain infected areas without damage to important structures. Kanavel's classic work "did more to awaken the surgical conscience to the anatomic intricacies of hand surgery than did almost any other single contribution" (Bick). Kanavel put the work through seven editions between 1912 and 1933. Each successive edition of Kanavel's work bears substantial revisions; together these editions show the evolution of hand surgery over its first twenty years. Boyes, On the Shoulders of Giants, pp. 170-72.

Isolation of Salmonella paratyphi B. First use of the term “paratyphoid fever”.

With J. P. Giles and J. Hammond.

Angioma serpiginosum.

Classic description of subacute bacterial endocarditis.

Proof that nucleic acid produces infectivity. See also Z. Naturf., 1956, 11b, 138-42.

Dyson designed one of the first usable interference microscopes  This optical system achieved interference imaging without requiring polarizing elements in the beam path.

Caulk’s cautery punch.

Infiltration anesthesia was developed by Schleich after pioneer work by Halsted (No. 5679) Schleich published a paper in English on the subject in Int. Clin., 1895, 5 ser., 2, 177-92.

“Froin’s syndrome” – a coagulation of the cerebrospinal fluid.

Bretonneau showed that croup, malignant angina, and “scorbutic gangrene of the gums” were all the same disease, for which he suggested the term dipntheritis, later substituting “dipnthérite”. He performed (pp. 300-38) tracheotomy for croup. English translation in New Sydenham Society’s Memoirs on diphtheria, London, 1859.

Jourdanet’s observational work in remote areas of Latin America and Asia produced important evidence for Bert’s proof that altitude sickness is due to anoxemia. In La pression barométrique (No. 944) Bert described how Jourdanet made it possible for him to do his laboratory work on altitude physiology, and how the two agreed to each take half the field: Bert, the laboratory work; and Jourdanet, the observational. Bert also credits Jourdanet with the theory of anoxemia. Extensively illustrated. Second edition, 2 vols., 1876. See No. 935.2. Digital facsimile of the 1875 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Bernard discovered the existence of vasomotor nerves.

Experimental atherosclerosis produced by a cholesterol-rich diet of whole milk, egg yolks, and meat. French translation as" Influence de la nourriture animale sur l'organisme des lapins," Arch. Méd. exp. Anat. path.,1908, 20,1-20. German translation as "Wirkung des tierischen nahrung auf den kaninchenorganismus," Ber. Milit. Med. Akad. 1908, 16, 154–76.

Potassium salts first used in treatment of myasthenia gravis.

In 1795 Dr. Elisha Perkins (1741-1799) of Connecticut introduced the use of “Metallic Tractors” for the treatment of a wide range of disorders, including pains in the head, face, teeth, breast, side, stomach, back, rheumatism and gout. During the next decade the devices were the subject of intense controversy in America and Europe. The Tractors measured about 3” long and were sold in pairs; they were made up of certain metals (their precise composition was kept secret) that perportedly worked through the agency of “animal magnetism.” A great number of ailing consumers paid huge prices for Perkins’s Metallic Tractors; George Washington bought several sets. The Perkins name may have been the first successful international “name branding” campaign. Elisha Perkiins did not publish on the "Tractors," leaving that aspect to his son Benjamin Douglas Perkins. This book was not published in America; presumably because with the craze for the product in America there was no need to publish a book to promote the "Tractors" there. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Administration of synthetic estrogens in advanced mammary cancer caused regression of tumors. With J. M. Watkinson, E. Paterson, and P. C. Koller.

Hunter believed in the sympathetic innervation of skeletal muscle and on this assumption devised the technique of sympathetic ramisection carried out by Royle (No. 4894). Biography by M.J. Blunt, Sydney, 1985.

Proof that x rays suppress the antibody response.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Enlarged and retitled second edition: The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: to which is added tropical hygiene, or the preservation of health in all hot climates, (adapted to general perusal) (1813). Digital facsimile of the 2nd ed. from the Internet Archive at this link. There were also several later editions.

First record of successful passage of influenza from animal to man. The ferret had previously been infected with a virus from a case of influenza.

Abstract:

"Three worldwide (pandemic) outbreaks of influenza occurred in the 20th century: in 1918, 1957, and 1968. The latter 2 were in the era of modern virology and most thoroughly characterized. All 3 have been informally identified by their presumed sites of origin as Spanish, Asian, and Hong Kong influenza, respectively. They are now known to represent 3 different antigenic subtypes of influenza A virus: H1N1, H2N2, and H3N2, respectively. Not classified as true pandemics are 3 notable epidemics: a pseudopandemic in 1947 with low death rates, an epidemic in 1977 that was a pandemic in children, and an abortive epidemic of swine influenza in 1976 that was feared to have pandemic potential. Major influenza epidemics show no predictable periodicity or pattern, and all differ from one another. Evidence suggests that true pandemics with changes in hemagglutinin subtypes arise from genetic reassortment with animal influenza A viruses."

Full text available from PubMedCentral at this link.

Forms Bd. IV, Teil 1 of Nothnagel’s Specielle Pathologie und Therapie.

Annals of the Pickett Thomson Research Lab., Monograph 16. "In two massive volumes Thomson and Thomson reviewed the literature on influenza up to 1934" (Spink).

A comprehensive survey written two years after the pandemic, including historical information back to 1893. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Third edition as Information retrieval: A health and biomedical perspective (2009).

In this monumental work in folio format Ehrenberg extended Otto Friedrich Müller’s bacteriological classification. Like Müller, he made no distinction between protozoa and bacteria, classing them both as infusoria. His classification included Bacterium, which he described and named in 1828, and published in 1830, Vibrio, Spirillum and Spirochaeta. The fine hand-colored plates in this book were drawn by Ehrenberg himself. Includes (p. 80) first description of B. subtilis.

Ehrenberg's book was translated into French with the atlas in reduced  8vo format and condensed to 8 uncolored plates, as Traité pratique du microscope, et de son emploi dans l'étude des corps organisés par le docteur L. Mandl; suivi de Recherches sur l'organisation des animaux infusoires par D.-C.-G. Ehrenberg. Accompagné de quatorze planches. (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1839). Digital facsimile of the 1839 translation from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Discovery of Balantidium coli, the first parasitic protozoon to be discovered and recognized as such. German translation in Virchows Arch. path. Anat., 1857, 12, 302-09. English translation in Kean et al. (No. 2268.1).

The McVay or Cooper ligament repair.

First successful ligation of the external iliac artery in America (Aug. 19, 1811).

This play about the Scopes Trial that concerned creationism versus evolution was the subject of numerous film adaptations including the most famous one first screened in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March.

Genetic evidence that sickle-cell disease is inherited in a simple Mendelian manner.

The first important classified bibliography of medical literature covering both monographic material and current periodicals.

Initial draft sequence of the human genome from the publically financed project, involving the coordinated efforts of 20 laboratories and hundreds of people around the world. The full text is available from Nature at this link.

Nature reprinted the paper in hardcover with supplementary material as Carina Davis & Richard Gallagher (eds.)  The Human Genome. Foreward by James D. Watson. (Houndgroves, Basingbroke, Hampshire, England & New York: Palgrave, 2001.)

Gowans and colleagues showed that the lymphocyte is the immunologically competent cell. 

Galtier immunized sheep by inoculating rabid saliva in the veins; this did not produce the disease and protected the animals from a further inoculation. His work aroused the interest of Pasteur.

Carotid arteriography.

The “Arthus phenomenon” – a symptom of anaphylaxis. Arthus showed that “antibody-mediated inflammation could be elicited in the skin of sensitized animals upon local introduction of an appropriate antigen” (Silverstein). Abbreviated English translation in Bibel, Milestones of immunology (1988).

Deals exhaustively with the history of intravenous and intramuscular injection.

The first English treatise on sports medicine.

Standard classification of growth plate fractures in children.

Report of a case of “sciatica” due to rupture of an intervertebral disc.

Biedl showed that the adrenal cortex is essential for life. His classic work shows the rapid development of the knowledge concerning endocrinology. In 1890 there were few publications dealing with internal secretion, but Biedl, in the second edition of his book, 1913, was able to include a bibliography of 8,500 items. The 4th edition (1922) includes an exhaustive bibliography. An English translation appeared in 1912.

Baronio was among the first to attempt transplantation and experimental surgery in animals. He successfully carried out full-thickness skin grafts after detachment from the body, and the first purely scientific research in the history of plastic surgery. Baronio devoted an entire chapter (pp. 27-32) to the transplantation of teeth from one person to another, an operation that he credited to John Hunter. "The transplanting of teeth from one person to another is performed according to the English surgeon without great difficulty, provided that the tooth to be transplanted is fresh and has a root suitable for the alveolus of the recipient. . . . One can reduce the length or diameter of the root by filing it down, and there is certain proof that a fresh tooth, however much its root has been filed down, will take as well as one which hasn't been filed. Such a wonderful operation, despite its simplicity, is practically unknown in Italy . . . whilst in England, on the contrary, there was a time when it was so common that ladies were ashamed to appear in society if they were lacking a tooth. . . . But it often happened that those people willing to sell their good teeth were infected with poison, either venereal or scrofulous, and through them these diseases were transmitted to those who had the misfortune to come upon diseased donors. Thus it was that the transplanting of teeth fell into disrepute. . . " (Baronio, On Grafting in Animals [1985], translated by Joan Bond Sax, pp. 48-49).

Digital facsimile of the 1804 edition from the Medical Heritage Library at the Internet Archive at this link.

Ciuffo presented the first demonstration that a cell-free agent could induce a human tumor. He induced human warts on his own hand with a bacteria-free filtrate (a virus) prepared from excised wart tissue. The significance of this finding was not recognized at the time. 

Translated into English as Medical innovations in humanitarian situations: The work of Médecins San Frontières (20).

Rayer inoculated sheep with blood of other sheep dead of anthrax. Microscopically he saw the anthrax bacillus in the blood of the inoculated sheep. Rayer was associated with Davaine, who later, in Bull. Acad. Méd., 1875, 2 sér., 4, 581-84, said that he had written the above account and had sent it to Rayer for publication.

In 1889 Morau transferred epitheliomata in mice and by 1893 had carried his experiments through 17 generations, the first systematic survey of tumor-host relationships from a purely biological viewpoint.

Haffkine developed an anti-bubonic plague vaccine (killed bouillon cultures), for use in man.

Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, founded the science of Eugenics. In his important Inquiries he showed mathematically “the results of his experiments on the relations between the powers of visual imagery and of abstract thought, of the associations between the elements of different sense departments, of the correlation of mental traits, the associations of words, and the times taken in making the associations” (T. K. Penniman). The word “eugenics” first appears in the above book.

The first American book on neurology, with a lengthy discussion of neuropathology. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Studies from the Institute for Medical Research, F. M. S., No. 10. Careful and long-continued experiments on the aetiology of beriberi were carried out by Fraser and Stanton in Malaya.

Includes four early plot maps; Seaman was one of the first to create maps that attempted to show the spread of contagious disease.

Jenner established the fact that a “vaccination” or inoculation with vaccinia (cowpox) lymph matter protects against smallpox. He performed his first vaccination on May 14, 1796. The above work, describing 23 successful vaccinations, announced to the world one of the greatest triumphs in the history of medicine. Jennerian vaccination soon superseded the protective inoculation of material from human cases of small-pox, which had previously been in vogue. What is probably the first mention of anaphylaxis appears on p. 13 of the pamphlet. See W.R. Lefanu, A Bio-bibliography of Edward Jenner, 1749-1823, rev. 2nd. ed., Winchester, St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1985. Several facsimile editions have been published. As a result of the success of Jenner’s vaccine natural smallpox was eradicated. The official declaration was made by the World Health Organization on May 8, 1980. See No. 5434.2. 

Carson recognized the vital effect on venous return played by the negative pressure in the pleural cavity.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First clinical description of phlegmasia alba dolens. White ascribed it to destruction of the lymphatics due to pressure of the foetal head.

In chapter 2 of vol. 1, pp. 254-90, “On Attention and its Diseases” Crichton described a mental state much like the inattentive subtype of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He did not mention any symptoms of hyperactivity. It is possible that Crichton observed hyperactive or impulsive symptoms in his patients, but failed to recognize a correlation and decided not to specify them in this context. He began his chapter with a definition of attention. Digital facsimile of Vol. 1 from the Internet Archive at this link; of Vol. 2 at this link.

Crumpe undertook extensive experiments to understand the effects of opium. His book provided the first detailed description of the effects of narcotic withdrawal. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The Schäfer method of artificial respiration. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Bigger, a Dublin surgeon, successfully grafted a cornea of one gazelle onto that of another. According to this paper, he first performed this operation in 1835 while he was “a prisoner with a Nomadic tribe of Arabs, about twelve or fourteen days’ journey from Grand Cairo”. By the time this account of his work was published by a “Mr. Swift”, Bigger had not attempted the operation on a human subject. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.