Chronology of Medicine and Medical Technology

-420	Hippocrates begins the scientific study of medicine by maintaining that diseases have natural causes.
-280	Herophilus studies the nervous system and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves.
-250	Erasistratus studies the brain and distinguishes between the cerebrum and cerebellum.
50	Pedanius Dioscorides describes the medical applications of plants in De Materia Medica.
180	Galen studies the connection between paralysis and severance of the spinal cord.
1242	Ibn an-Nafi suggests that the right and left ventricles of the heart are separate and describes the lesser circulation of blood.
1249	Roger Bacon writes about convex lens eyeglasses for treating farsightedness.
1403	Venice implements a quarantine against the Black Death.
1451	Nicholas of Cusa invents concave lens spectacles to treat nearsightedness.
1543	Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes medicine.
1546	Gerolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities.
1553	Miguel Serveto describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs.
1559	Realdo Colombo describes the lesser circulation of blood through the lungs in detail.
1603	Girolamo Fabrici studies leg veins and notices that they have valves which only allow blood to flow toward the heart.
1628	William Harvey explains the vein-artery system and structure of the heart in De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis.
1701	Giacomo Pylarini gives the first smallpox inoculations.
1747	James Lind discovers that citrus fruits prevent scurvy.
1763	Claudius Aymand performs the first successful appendectomy.
1796	Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination method.
1800	Humphry Davy announces the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide.
1816	Rene Laennec invents the stethoscope.
1842	Crawford Long performs the first surgical operation using anasthesia.
1847	Ignaz Semmelweis studies and prevents the transmission of puerperal fever.
1870	Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease.
1881	Louis Pasteur develops an anthrax vaccine.
1882	Louis Pasteur develops a rabies vaccine.
1890	Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins and uses them to develop tetanus and diptheria vaccines.
1906	Frederick Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes scurvy and rickets.
1907	Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotheraputic cure for sleeping sickness.
1921	Edward Mellanby discovers vitamin D and shows that its absence causes rickets.
1928	Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
1932	Gerhard Domagk develops a chemotheraputic cure for streptococcus.
1952	Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine.