Important Events in Medicine and Health, 1960–1969
1960
- The percentage of babies delivered by cesarean section doubles in twenty years to between 5 and 6 percent.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry scientist B.R. Burmeister demonstrates that a virus causes a type of cancer in chickens. His work implies that viruses may likewise cause cancer in humans.
- Laborer Billy Smith has a severed leg reimplanted, but with only temporary success.
- Debate continues over the effectiveness of inactive-versus active-virus polio vaccines.
- On January 1, physicians visit only 10 percent of patients in their homes. The other 90 percent come to the physician's office for treatment.
- On January 1, abortion is illegal in all 50 states, though 45 permit abortion when pregnancy endangers the mother's life.
- In February, Dr. Frank L. Horsfall Jr. becomes director of the prestigious Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
- In...
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