Test Your Knowledge of History's Medical Breakthroughs

In 1854, when a cholera epidemic broke out in London, John Snow began searching for the source of the disease. Snow created a map showing where all the cholera cases were, and noticed they clustered around a water pump. He theorized that contaminated water was the source of infection. Snow’s work laid the foundations for modern epidemiology.

The world's first "test-tube baby" was born to Lesley and Peter Brown in Manchester, England, in 1978. Named Louise Joy Brown, the baby was conceived via in vitro fertilization, then an experimental procedure that allowed couples struggling with fertility to conceive. Since IVF became mainstream, hundreds of thousands of babies have been born through this procedure.

Gerty Cori was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for medicine and the first American woman to win the prize in the sciences. In 1936, Cori and her husband, Carl, discovered the glucose-1-phosphate, which revolutionized the treatment of diabetes. Eleven years later, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking research.

On December 3, 1967, Christiaan Barnard carried out the world’s first successful heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. The patient was 53-year-old Louis Washkansky, who was suffering from heart failure. Barnard applied an experimental technique pioneered by U.S. surgeons, successfully completing the first of many life-saving heart transplants.

Polio is an infectious disease that, for a small number of people, can be deadly. Although many don’t experience symptoms when infected, a small number of people suffer paralysis and potential death. So when American virologist Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine for the disease in 1953, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.

In 1895, after accidentally discovering glowing rays while working in his lab, German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen worked in secrecy to understand his new, mysterious X-rays. In one experiment, Röntgen stumbled upon what would be his discovery’s greatest utility when he X-rayed the bones in his wife’s hand. Within a year, X-rays were being used by medical professionals in the U.S.

For millennia, many leading medical minds concluded that human health was governed by the four humors: phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile. Maladies and pain were described as a deficiency or excess of one or multiple humors. This theory fell out of favor in the 19th century when the rise of bacteriology and the discovery of viruses moved medicine into the modern age.

Florence Nightingale began working as a nurse in a London hospital, where she first realized patients were more likely to recover if they were kept in clean, well-ventilated rooms. During the Crimean War (1854-56), Nightingale assembled a troupe of nurses to make necessary changes to filthy field hospitals. By cleaning and caring for wounded soldiers, she introduced the key tenets of modern nursing.

Organ transplants are now a common lifesaving measure for serious diseases, but the practice itself is only 70 years old. In 1954, surgeons at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, performed the first organ transplant when they removed a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and implanted it in his twin brother, Richard.

In the early 18th century, the greatest danger on the high seas was illness — and scurvy was one of the deadliest. Because of a typical ship’s lack of foods rich in vitamin C, crews on long voyages succumbed to putrid sores and even death from scurvy. Thankfully, in 1747, Scottish doctor James Lind conducted an experiment on the HMS Salisbury and learned that those treated with fruit fared better than those without.

French chemist Louis Pasteur is a titan of bacteriology and most famous for the sterilization process that bears his name: pasteurization. This process makes foods like milk and wine safer for consumption while also increasing how long they stay fresh. Pasteur also created vaccines for anthrax and cholera to protect animals, and investigated ways to treat rabies.

First published in 1858, “Gray’s Anatomy” — named after British anatomist and surgeon Henry Gray — is now on its 42nd edition and is widely considered “the doctor’s bible.” The book is regarded as “the most comprehensive account of current anatomical understanding” by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and its immensely detailed illustrations have only aided its popularity in the 165 years since its initial publication.

Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming noticed a petri dish he had failed to clear of staph colonies had the penicillium fungus growing inside — and it had killed the staph nearby it. He initially called the bacteria-busting drug “mold juice” in recognition of its origin, but later settled on the more palatable “penicillin.”

Dr. William T. G. Morton and surgeon John Collins Warren conducted the first successful public demonstration of ether on October 16, 1846 at Massachusetts General Hospital. Before this point, patients had had to endure surgeries while awake, often having to be forcibly held down. The use of anesthetics was revolutionary, reducing patient suffering and making surgery much safer.

Invented by German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1851, the ophthalmoscope is an instrument used to inspect the inner eye. The device directs light in the retina, which in turn reflects the light back through a small hole in the ophthalmoscope. This presents a magnified image of structures in the back of the eye, including retina blood vessels, the macula, and the optic disk.

Joseph Lister was a British surgeon who pioneered antiseptic medicine (Listerine mouthwash is named in his honor). Lister used carbolic acid to keep wounds and surgical instruments germ-free. The survival rate of patients undergoing surgery was historically very low due to the prevalence of sepsis. But after Lister introduced antiseptics in 1865, his surgical mortality rates dropped from 45% to 15%.

In May 1952, Rosalind Franklin took “Photo 51,” the first X-ray image depicting the double helix shape of what’s known today as DNA. The image inspired the work of scientists Francis Crick and James Watson, who, in one of the biggest injustices in Nobel Prize history, were both awarded for their work in 1962 with no mention of Franklin’s work. Decades later, the greater science community now honors Franklin’s groundbreaking contribution.

In 1921, Canadian orthopedic surgeon Frederick G. Banting became the first person to both isolate insulin and suggest it as a treatment for diabetes. Prior to the discovery of insulin, people with Type 1 diabetes often only survived a few years after being diagnosed. The team behind the discovery was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in recognition of the drug’s life-saving impact.

Smallpox is a deadly disease that plagued humans for much of history — until it became the first and only human disease completely eradicated by vaccination. The vaccine was developed by English physician Edward Jenner in 1796 after he observed that milkmaids who caught cowpox appeared to be immune to smallpox.

The race to package aspirin as a drug started in 1763 after English clergyman Edward Stone noted that chewing on willow bark relieved rheumatic fever. But it took many years for the active ingredient, salicin, to be synthesized. German scientist Felix Hoffman eventually formulated acetylsalicylic acid in 1897. Soon after, Bayer Industries rebranded it “aspirin” and began mass-marketing the wonder drug.