1875 - Medicine

Medicine

The Fiji Islands lose 40,000 of their 150,000 inhabitants in a measles epidemic following the return of the Fiji king from a visit to New South Wales.

The practice of osteopathy is founded by Virginia-born Kirksville, Missouri, physician Andrew Taylor Still, 47, who lost three of his children to spinal meningitis in 1864. He has convinced himself that all diseases are caused by abnormalities in or near bodily joints (the abnormalities will later be called osteopathic lesions or spinal joint subluxations) (see 1892).

Kalamazoo, Michigan, inventor George F. Green patents an electric dental drill. He will assign his patent on "electro-magnetic dental tools" for sawing, filing, dressing, and polishing teeth to Samuel S. White of Philadelphia, whose company will become the leading U.S. producer of dental equipment, but use of electric drills will await the development of lighter engines and less expensive batteries (see 1957).

Vaseline petroleum jelly is introduced by Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, whose English-born U.S. founder Robert Augustus Chesebrough, 38, will make kerosene and lubricating oils until 1881 but confine himself thereafter to producing petroleum jelly.

Phillips Milk of Magnesia is introduced by New York entrepreneur Charles H. Phillips, whose antacid and laxative product will be sold for well over a century.