1874 - Medicine

Medicine

Norwegian physician Arrnauer Gerhard Henrik Hansen, 33, discovers the leprosy bacillus (the term bacillus will not be introduced until 1875). The disease will hereafter properly be called Hansen's disease (see 1246; Father Damien, 1873).

"Investigations of the Vegetal Forms of Coccobacteria septica" ("Untersuchungen über die Vegetationsformen von Coccobacteria septica") by surgeon Theodor Billroth at Vienna is a pioneer study of the bacterial causes of wound fever.

U.S. physicians continue as they will until the end of the century to obtain medical diplomas after as little as 4 months' attendance at schools that often have no laboratories, no dissection facilities, and no clinical training.

The Baltimore Eye & Ear Dispensary is founded by physicians who include local ophthalmologist Samuel Theobald, 28, who has introduced the use of boric acid for treating eye infections.

East Orange, New Jersey, inventors Robert Wood Johnson, 29, and George J. Seabury pioneer improved surgical dressings; they succeed in manufacturing an adhesive and medicated plaster with a rubber base (see 1885).