- 2600 BC The Egyptian Imhotep describes the diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases
- 500 BC Alcmaeon of Croton distinguished veins from arteries
- 460 BC Birth of Hippocrates, the Greek father of medicine begins the scientific study of medicine and prescribes a form of aspirin
- 300 BC Diocles wrote the first known anatomy book
- 280 BC Herophilus studies the nervous system
- 130 AD Birth of Galen. Greek physician to gladiators and Roman emperors
- c60AD Pedanius Dioscorides writes De Materia Medica
- 910 Persian physician Rhazes identifies smallpox
- 1010 Avicenna writes The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine
- 1249 Roger Bacon invents spectacles
- 1489 Leonardo da Vinci dissects corpses
- 1543 Vesalius publishes findings on human anatomy in De Fabrica Corporis Humani
- 1590 Zacharius Jannssen invents the microscope
- 1628 William Harvey publishes An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals which forms the basis for future research on blood vessels, arteries and the heart
- 1656 Sir Christopher Wren experiments with canine blood transfusions
- 1670 Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers blood cells
- 1683 Anton van Leeuwenhoek observes bacteria
- 1701 Giacomo Pylarini gives the first smallpox inoculations
- 1747 James Lind publishes his Treatise of the Scurvy stating that citrus fruits prevent scurvy
- 1763 Claudius Aymand performs the first successful appendectomy
- 1796 Edward Jenner develops the process of vaccination for smallpox, the first vaccines for any disease
- 1800 Sir Humphry Davy discovers the anesthetics properties of nitrous oxide
- 1816 Rene Laennec invents the stethoscope
- 1818 James Blundell performs the first successful transfusion of human blood
- 1842 Crawford W. Long uses either as a general anesthetic
- 1844 Dr. Horace Wells uses nitrous oxide as an anesthetic
- 1846 William Morton, a dentist, is the first to publish the process of using anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide
- 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to gain a medical degree from Geneva Medical College in New York
- 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis discovers how to prevent the transmission of puerperal fever
- 1853 Charles Gabriel Pravaz and Alexander Wood develop the syringe
- 1857 Louis Pasteur identifies germs as clause of disease
- 1867 Joseph Lister develops the use of antiseptic surgical methods and publishes Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery
- 1870 Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur establish the germ theory of disease
- 1879 First vaccine developed for cholera
- 1881 First vaccine developed for anthrax by Louis Pasteur
- 1882 First vaccine for developed for rabies by Louis Pasteur
- Koch discovers the TB bacillus
- 1887 First contact lenses developed
- 1890 Emil von Behring discovers antitoxins and develops tetanus and diphtheria vaccines
- 1895 Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovers X-rays
- 1896 First vaccine developed for typhoid fever
- 1897 First vaccine developed for Bubonic plague
- 1899 Felix Hoffman develops aspirin
- 1901 Karl Landsteiner introduces the system to classify blood into A, B, AB, and O groups
- 1913 Dr. Paul Dudley White pioneers the use of the electrocardiograph – ECG
- 1921 Edward Mellanby discovers that lack of vitamin D in the diet causes rickets
- Earle Dickson invented the Band-Aid
- 1922 Insulin first used to treat diabetes
- 1923 First vaccine developed for diphtheria
- 1926 First vaccine developed for whooping cough
- 1927 First vaccine developed for tuberculosis
- First vaccine developed for tetanus
- 928 Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
- 1935 First vaccine developed for yellow fever
- Percy Lavon Julian synthesized the medicines physostigmine for glaucoma and cortisone for rheumatoid arthritis
- 1937 First vaccine developed for typhus
- Bernard Fantus pioneers the use of the first blood bank in Chicago
- 1942 Doctor Karl Theodore Dussik publishes the first paper on medical ultrasonic – ultrasound
- 1943 Selman A. Waksman discovers the antibiotic streptomycin
- 1945 First vaccine developed for influenza
- 1950 John Hopps invented the first cardiac pacemaker
- 1952 Paul Zoll develops the first cardiac pacemaker
- Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine
- Rosalind Franklin uses X-ray diffraction to study the structure of DNA
- 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick work on the structure of the DNA molecule
- 1954 Gertrude Elion patented a leukemia-fighting drug
- Dr. Joseph E. Murray performs the first kidney transplant
- 1955 Jonas Salk develops the first polio vaccine
- 1963 Thomas Fogarty invented the balloon embolectomy catheter
- 1964 First vaccine developed for measles
- 1967 First vaccine developed for mumps
- Dr. Christian Bernard performs the first human heart transplant
- 1970 First vaccine developed for rubella
- 1974 First vaccine developed for chicken pox
- 1975 Robert S. Ledley invents CAT-Scans
- 1977 First vaccine developed for pneumonia
- 1978 First test-tube baby is born
- First vaccine developed for meningitis
- 1980 Smallpox is eradicated
- 1981 First vaccine developed for hepatitis B
- 1983 HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is identified
- 1984 Alec Jeffreys devises a genetic fingerprinting method
- 1985 Willem J. Kolff invented the artificial kidney dialysis machine
- 1992 First vaccine developed for hepatitis A
- 1996 Dolly the sheep becomes the first clone
- 2006 First vaccine to target a cause of cancer