Happy Thanksgiving! Here at Becker’s Healthcare, we’d like to give thanks to a few of the many men and women whose pioneering work underpins modern medicine. Medicine is one of the most collaborative disciplines, and without the contributions of these individuals medical care today would be very different.
The following individuals are a selection of those responsible for some important firsts in medicine, from the discovery of “germs” to the foundation of molecular biology.
1. Edward Jenner (1749-1823): Vaccines
British surgeon and naturalist Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine, the smallpox vaccine, in 1796. Jenner was inspired to develop the practice of vaccination after noticing that milkmaids who caught the disease cowpox never developed smallpox. Jenner inoculated the son of his gardener with cowpox, and the boy failed to develop smallpox after being exposed repeatedly to infected smallpox material. This first vaccine laid the foundations for the field of immunology.
2. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910): First female physician in the U.S. and U.K.
This British native was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and the first woman on the UK Medical Register, a list of all practicing physicians in that country. After watching a friend die of what was probably uterine cancer around 1845, Blackwell decided to obtain her medical degree. She earned it from Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y., in 1849 and subsequently opened a practice in New York City. She was heavily involved in social change as well as medicine throughout her life and had such famous friends and correspondents as Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lady Anna Byron, wife of the poet Lord Byron.
3. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895): Germ theory of disease
Among his many claims to fame, French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was the first scientist to support the germ theory of disease, the idea that diseases are caused by microorganisms, with his research. Pasteur expended a lot of effort investigating what agents caused beverages like milk and wine to spoil, inventing his eponymic process “pasteurization” in the process. After discovering that microbes were responsible for sour wine and spoiled milk, Pasteur hypothesized that microbes also caused disease in the body. He later supported this theory in the mid-1860s by showing that a malady attacking silkworms in Alais, France, was caused by microbes attacking silkworm eggs.
4. Joseph Lister (1827-1912): Antiseptic surgery
British surgeon Joseph Lister is best known for applying Louis Pasteur’s work in microbiology to pioneer antiseptic surgery. At the University of Glasgow in the 1860s Dr. Lister experimented with wound treatment with carbolic acid, then used to treat sewage, using Pasteur’s studies of the germ theory of disease to guide his work. After successfully proving that carbolic acid-basedsterilization of wounds reduced gangrene, Dr. Lister went on to promote handwashing and surgical instrument sterilization as a means of reducing infection. His legacy in sterilization is also evident in the naming of a bacteria genus, a slime mold genus and Listerine, all of which are his namesakes.
5. William Osler (1849-1919): Specialty residencies
Canadian physician William Osler is known as the “father of modern medicine.” One of the founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., Osler created the first specialty training residency program. He was also the first to put medical students through formalized bedside clinical training. In addition to his medical career, Osler was also a historian and an author.
6. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910): Nursing
Florence Nightingale, social reformer, statistician and healthcare pioneer, was the founder of modern nursing. The British native’s claim to fame came during the Crimean War in 1854, when she and 38 other women were sent to minister to British soldiers. Finding an unhygienic, short-staffed hectic camp, Nightingale and her team reduced the death rate by 42 percent to 2 percent. A fund to train nurses for the war was established in her name in 1855. Nightingale went on to found a nursing school, write several texts on nursing and contribute to modern statistical analysis of sanitary reform.
7. Richard M. Lawler (1896-1982): Successful organ transplantation
Richard M. Lawler, MD, is best known for performing the first successful internal organ transplant, a kidney. He performed the transplant in 1950 in Chicago at Little Company of Mary Hospital. His patient was a 49-year-old Ruth Tucker, who suffered from polycystic kidney disease. The transplant was successful, though Ms. Tucker died from other causes five years later. While Dr. Lawler never performed another kidney transplant, his success paved the way for others to see the possibility of organ transplant as a viable treatment option.
8. Forrest M. Bird (b. 1921): Ventilator
Forrest M. Bird, MD, PhD, ScD, is an American pilot and inventor best known for creating the first reliable mechanical ventilators which are used in cardiopulmonary care. Dr. Bird began his career as a pilot, making his first solo flight at the age of 14 and earning his first aviation license at 16. By the time he enrolled in the Air Force at in 1941, he was qualified to be a technical air training officer. This qualification allowed Dr. Bird to fly nearly every plane the Air Force had to offer, including several that exceeded comfortable breathing altitudes. This experience prompted him to invent ventilation aids. In 1955 his work resulted in the release of the Bird Universal Medical Respirator, a pneumatic ventilator that is still in use around the world today.
9. Francis Crick (1916-2004): Molecular biology
Known most famously for being one of the four researchers who determined the double-helix structure of DNA, Francis Crick, PhD, is also a leader of the research team that discovered DNA is made of codons - amino acid triplets that encode genetic information. As a result of this late-1950s discovery, another research team was able to decipher the genetic code, leading to the birth of molecular biology and the understanding of the role genetics plays in human variation and health.