10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today

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Carolyn Friedman

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10 Famous Doctors who Made Medicine What it is Today
During any time period, various changes can take place, particularly in the medical field. In the much earlier years, the doctors little black bag contained everything they needed to treat patients. A medical diagnosis was made more on intuition then scientific facts. But whether in the past or the present, there are those innovators whose compassion and love of learning allow them to make significant medical discoveries that have had a major effect on humankind and improved the quality of life. From medical inventions to performing life saving surgeries, we have compiled a list of 10 famous doctors who have made medicine what it is today.

1.Hippocrates (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) - Hippocrates is known as one of the most exceptional individuals in medical history. He was the first physician to believe that thoughts, ideas, and feelings come from the brain and not the heart as other colleagues in his era so adamantly thought . He described in detail disease symptoms and was the first doctor to precisely characterize the symptoms of pneumonia, as well as epilepsy in children. He believed in natural healing processes of relaxation, nutrition, fresh air and cleanliness. Hippocrates traveled through Greece practicing medicine. He founded a medical school on the island of Cos, Greece and began teaching his ideas. He soon developed an Oath for physicians that is still followed today, called the Hippocratic Oath . He died in 377 BC.
2.Jean Astruc (March 19, 1684 - May 5, 1766) - Jean was a French professor of medicine who discovered and wrote about the cure of syphilis and other venereal diseases. He quickly became one of the outstanding doctors of the 18th century recognized throughout the world. The publication in 1736 of his classic work, “De morbis venereis,” is a milestone in the history of syphilis. He was also involved in comprehensive research into the book of Genesis and wrote many acclaimed compositions on how Moses had originally written the book of Genesis.
3.Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (February 17, 1781 – August 13, 1826) - Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec was a French physician who invented the stethoscope in 1816. Before then, the only way a doctor could hear the sounds of the heart and the chest was by placing his ear on the patients’ chest. However, this sound was not always clear, especially if the patient was obese. Through his original creation, he was able to explore sounds in the lungs and heart. This instrument helped him to determine diagnoses for the autopsies he performed. He was known to be the father of clinical auscultation and wrote many journals and clinical terms that are still used by physicians around the world today.
4.Henry Gray (1827-1861) - Dr. Gray was an English anatomist and surgeon who is most noted for publishing the book Gray’s Anatomy . With some help of his friend Henry Vandyke Carter, a skilled draughtsman and former demonstrator of anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. A second edition was prepared by Gray and published in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25 and held the positions of demonstrator of Anatomy, curator of the museum, and Lecturer of Anatomy at St. George’s Hospital. In 1861 he was a main candidate for the title of assistant surgeon. Sadly, he was overcome by an attack of smallpox, which he contracted while looking after a nephew, and died and untimely death at the young age of 34.
5.Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827 - February 10, 1912) - For almost a decade, doctors tried to understand why wounds became infected after surgical procedures. John Lister was one of them. An English surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, he completed comprehensive research on the origins of infection and created many of the sterilization procedures used in today’s hospitals that keep infection to a minimum. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds, which led to the reduction of post-operative infections and safer surgical practices for patients.
6.Theodor Billroth( April 26, 1829 - February 6, 1894) - Dr. Billroth was an innovative surgeon as well as a teacher. He was directly responsible for a number of landmarks in surgery, including the first esophagectomy (1871), the first laryngectomyl (1873), and the first successful gastroduodenostomy (1881.) These procedures, of course with some modification, are still practiced by physicians when treating gastric cancers and some cases of peptic ulcer disease. At the University of Vienna, he promoted longer post medical school rotations in surgery. He started what where considered extended “apprenticeships” in surgery with a curriculum that contained 1 year of hospital work in general medicine, followed by a year of dissection on cadavers and animals, and ending with a 2 or 3 year assistantship in surgery under a senior surgeon. This was the start of modern day residency training in surgery as it is known today.
7.Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904 - April 1, 1950) - Dr. Charles Richard was an African American physician and medical researcher. His studies were in the field of blood transfusions and creating advancements in procedures for blood storage. He focused his knowledge on developing blood banks on a larger scale early in World War II. This caused thousands of lives to be saved in the armed forces. He protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood saying there was no clinical scientific evidence. These beliefs were a contributing factor of his termination. Finally in 1943, he was recognized for his actions and became the first black surgeon to serve as a medical examiner for the American Board of Surgery.
8.Virginia Apgar (June 7, 1909 - August 77, 1974) Virginia was an American doctor who was dedicated to the advancement of anesthesia and pediatrics. Because of her expertise in the fields of teratology and anesthesiology, she familiarized the field of neonatology . Even more, she is highly respected for the development of the Apgar test, which is a procedure that is used to determine the health of newborn babies. This test has significantly decreased the mortality rate of infants in countries across the globe.
9.Christiaan Neethling Barnard (November 8, 1922 - September 2, 2001) - The West African physician served as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1958, where he established the hospital’s first heart unit. He had been experimenting for several years with animal heart transplants after he performed the first successful kidney transplant in West Africa in 1959. He followed with the first heart transplant in 1967, where he was assisted by Dr. Michael DeBakey. This operation lasted nine hours and required a team of more than 25 people. These procedures played a substantial role in urology and cardiac surgeries performed by doctors in today’s operating rooms.
10.Peter Safar (April 12, 1924 – August 2, 2003) - Dr. Safar was the thought provoking voice behind both cardiopulmonary resuscitation and critical care medicine. As an honored professor of resuscitation medicine at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, he created this country’s first intensive care unit and paramedic ambulance services that have changed the outlines of emergency services for patients. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine 3 times.
With the aid of technological advancements and the introduction of antibiotics and other vital drugs, these doctors have paved the way for their successors to shed light on traditional beliefs in medicine and open up endless possibilities to equipment and procedures that would never have been thought possible years ago.

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