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Sir Humphrey Davis discovered nitrous oxide (laughing gas)’s anesthetic property while he was an assistant at an institution. After he inhaled nitrous oxide, he noticed that the sensation of pain was dulled. The gas was not used until 1846 (by dentist Dr. Horace Wells).
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Ether’s anesthetic properties are shown through Dr. William Morton. Initially, patients wer sedated by inhaling fumes from an ether-soaked sponge. Beforehand, patients had been fully conscoius during point surgeries. Now, ehter decreased the pain during surgery. In addition, surgeons also could start taking more time and care during surgeries, allowing the development of more complex, better surgical techniques. There were some side side effects, e.g., post-anesthtic nausea and vomiting.
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Joseph Lister developed antiseptic surgical methods, such as cleansing wounds and tools properly. Deaths due to infections decreased from sixty percent to only four percent. He published the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery.
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Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch established the germ theory of disease that stated that a certain diseases were caused by microorganisms carried over by dust and other medium, significantly increasing the importance of hygiene. It led to new practiced such as pasteurization and antiseptics.
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The first vaccine for cholera was developed. Louis Pasteur produced the first laboratory-developed vaccine, actually as an accident, due to the mistake of an assisstant. He concluded that the factor that made the bacteria less dangerous was exposure to oxygen.
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The first vaccine for anthrax was developed. Louis Pasteur conducted an experiment with livestock. All of the unvaccinated animals died while all of the vaccinated ones lived (except one that died from miscarriage).
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The first vaccine for rabies was developed. After Louis Pasteur and his team discovered that the rabies germ made its way to the brain first and attacked the nervous system, they traced the germ to the brain and spinal cord of infected animals with the use of dried spinal cords. Thus, they developed the rabies vaccine. After a successful experiment on animals, and finally after one on Joseph Meister, a young boy bitten by a rabid dog, the team concluded that they had found a vaccine for rabies.
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Emil von Behring discovered antitoxins and used them to develop vaccines.The antibody forms an immuization with a given toxin to help immunize against or treat infectuous diseases.
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Almroth Edward Wright discovered the first typhoid fever vaccine. It consisted of heat killed typhoid bacilli. Typhoid fever is a common worldwide illness transmitted by ingestion of food or water contaminated the infected feces. It is caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi.
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The first vaccine for plague was developed.
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Felix Hoffman developed aspirin, a.k.a., acetyl salicyclic acid. He synthesized it so that it would not irritate the lining of the mouth and stomach. Effective as a pain killer, it is the most widely used medicine in the world.
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Karl Landsteiner developed the system of ABO blood typing that showed blood compatibility and rejection. It divided human blood type into four categories: A, B, AB, and O types.
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English biochemist Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins discovered the existence of vitamins and its essentiality to one’s health. Following was scientist Cashmir Funk who named the compounds he found in thiamine (in rice husks) "vitamine". Hopkins and Funk both hypothesized that a lack of vitamins may be the cause of certain illnesses.
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Insulin was used to treat diabetes for the first time. At first Frederick Banting and Charles Best studied isolated insulin and successfully tested it on diabetic dogs in 1921. Then, John Macleod and James Collip produced insulin for human use and first used it on Leonard Thompson in 1922.
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The first vaccine for diphtheria was developed. It was not widely used until the 1930s. In the mid-1940s, the vaccines for pertussis and diphtheria were combined to make the DTP vaccine.
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The first vaccine for pertussis was developed.
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The first vaccines for tuberculosis and tetanus were developed.
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Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
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The first vaccine for yellow fever was developed.
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Serlman A. Waksman developed streptomycin, an antibiotic. It would later be used to treat tuberculosis, infections, etc.
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The first vaccine for influenza was developed.
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Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine.
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The first vaccine for measles, a.k.a., rubeola, a disease caused by a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus, was developed.
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The first vaccine for rubella was developed. Often mild enough to be unnoticed, the disease usually lasts 1-5 days. It is passed from person to person by breathing the same air. The virus was isolated in tissue culture by two groups led by Parkmon and Weller. In the early 1970s, a triple vaccine (MMR) was introduced.
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The first vaccine for chincken pox was invented by Michiaki Takahashi from the oka strain of the virus. The U.S. started to use it in 1995.
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The first vaccine for pneumonia was developed.
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The first vaccine for meningitis was developed.
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The first vaccine for hepatitis B was developed. It is an inflammation of the liver caused by the HBV virus. Symptoms include vomiting, jaundice, and in some rare cases, even death. The vaccine was developed by Hilleman for Merck and Co.
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The first vaccine for hepatitis A was developed.
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The first vaccine for lyme disease was developed.
