MEDTECH HISTORY TIMELINE

3,300 BC TO 2019

Jemuel Harel M. Florida BSMT T-1

3,300 BC
During the Stone Age, early doctors used
very primitive forms of herbal medicine.
2,600 BC
Imhotep the priest-physician who was
later deified as the Egyptian god of
1,900 BC medicine.
Akkadian clay tablets on medicine survive
primarily as copies from Ashurbanipal's
library at Nineveh.
1,800 BC
Code of Hammurabi sets out fees for
surgeons and punishments for
1,600 BC malpractice
Hearst papyrus, coprotherapy and
magic 1,500 BC
Saffron used as a medicine on the
Aegean island of Thera in ancient
1,500 BC Greece
Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian
medical text and the oldest known
surgical treatise (no true surgery) no
magic 900 BC
Hesiod reports an ontological conception
of disease via the Pandora myth. Disease
has a "life" of its own but is of divine
700 BC origin.
Cnidos medical school; also one at
Cos
500 BC
Darius I orders the restoration of the
House of Life (First record of a (much
500 BC older) medical school)
Bian Que becomes the earliest
physician known to use acupuncture
and pulse diagnosis
500 BC
Pills were used. They were presumably
invented so that measured amounts of a
medicinal substance could be delivered to
a patient.
400 BC
Philistion of Locri Praxagoras
distinguishes veins and arteries and
determines only arteries pulse
270 BC
Huangfu Mi writes the Zhenjiu Jiayijing (The
ABC Compendium of Acupuncture), the
first textbook focusing solely on
50 AD acupuncture
Aulus Cornelius Celsus Medical
encyclopedia
129
Galen – Clinical medicine based on
observation and experience.
300
Magnus of Nisibis, Alexandrian
doctor and professor book on urine
369
Basil of Caesarea founded at Caesarea in
Cappadocia an institution (hospital) called
Basilias, with several buildings for patients,
nurses, physicians, workshops, and schools
790
Leo Itrosophist also Mathematician or
Philosopher wrote "Epitome of
Medicine"
1250
Roger Bacon constructed the first
magnifying glass.
1443
Antonio Benivieni - Pathological
anatomy
1590
Zacharius Jannssen invents the
microscope.
1603
Girolamo Fabrici studies leg veins
and notices that they have valves
which allow blood to flow only
toward the heart
MEDTECH HISTORY TIMELINE
3,300 BC TO 2019

Jemuel Harel M. Florida BSMT T-1

1670
Anton van Leeunwenhoek discovers
blood cells.
1701
Giacomo Pylarini gives the first
smallpox inoculations in Europe. They
1736 were widely practised in the East
before then.
Claudius Aymand performs the first
successful appendectomy
1744
Pierre-Joseph Desault - First
surgical periodical
1749
Benjamin Bell – Leading surgeon of his
time and father of a surgical dynasty,
author of "A System of Surgery"
1800
Humphry Davy announces the
anaesthetic properties of nitrous
oxide.
1816
Rene Laennec invents the
stethoscope. 1818
James Blundell performs the first
successful human transfusion.
1842
Crawford Long performs the first
surgical operation using anesthesia
with ether. 1845
John Hughes Bennett first describes
leukemia as a blood disorder.
1846
First painless surgery with general
anesthetic.
1849
Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman
to gain a medical degree in the United
States.
1853
Charles Gabriel Pravaz and
Alexander Wood develop the
syringe.
1861
Louis Pasteur discovers Germ
Theory
1870
Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch
establish the germ theory of disease.
1879
First vaccine for cholera.
1901
Karl Landsteiner discovers the
existence of different human blood
types
1907
Henry Stanley Plummer develops the
first structured patient record and
clinical number (Mayo clinic)
1921

Frederick Banting and Charles Best

discover insulin – important for the
treatment of diabetes
1927
First vaccine for tuberculosis
1927
First vaccine for tetanus
1935
First vaccine for yellow fever
1952
Jonas Salk develops the first
polio vaccine (available in 1955)
1980
First vaccine for hepatitis B –
Baruch Samuel Blumberg
1989
Pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD) – Alan Handyside
1998
Stem cell therapy – James
Thomson
2019
3D-print heart from human
patient's cells.