When I use a word . . . Medical anniversaries in 2025
Authors: Jeffrey K Aronson
Journal: BMJ (2025)

My list of 110 medically related anniversaries for 2025 (events in years ending '25 and'75) includes: ● Fifty two births: Charles Rochemont Aikin, surgeon; William Aitken, pathologist; Sir John Baber, physician; Helen Rae Bamber née Balmuth, human rights advocate and psychotherapist; Charles Cassidy Bass, American physician; Norman Bier, optometrist and contact lens specialist; Baruch Samuel "Barry" Blumberg, American scientist; Henry Edmund Gaskin Boyle, anaesthetist; Leslie Baruch Brent, transplantation immunologist; Fred Brown, virologist; Alfred John Carpenter, physician; Jean-Martin Charcot, French physician and neurologist; Joseph Thomas Clover, anaesthetist and surgeon; Barry Albert Cross, physiologist; Henry Hallett Dale, pharmacologist and physiologist; William Bill Davison, geriatrician; John Dossetor, Canadian physician; Robert Geoffrey Edwards, physiologist; John Richard Farre, physician; Robert Jackson Fletcher, optometrist; Paul Greengard, American neuroscientist; Wendy Elsa Greengross, general practitioner and broadcaster; David Gregorie, Scottish physician; Samuel Osborne Habershon, physician; Daniel Hanbury, pharmacologist; Henry Harris, cell biologist; Andrew Herxheimer, physician and clinical pharmacologist; Henry Tristram Holland, missionary and eye surgeon; Timothy Holmes, surgeon; Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist; John Kidd, physician; Homer Terril Lane, educationist and psychoanalyst; John Charles Grant Ledingham, bacteriologist; Mary Frances Lyon, geneticist; Johann Baptist Malfatti, Count of Monteregio, Italian born physician; John Marks, chairman of the BMA; Thomas Morson, pharmaceutical manufacturer; Autar Singh Paintal, Indian scientist, discoverer of sensory receptors; Edward William Pritchard, surgeon and poisoner; Reginald Crundall Punnett, experimental geneticist; Richard Reece, physician; J Murdoch Ritchie, neuroscientist, biophysicist, and pharmacologist; William Tindal Robertson, physician; Martin Rodbell, American scientist; Oliver Smithies, biochemist and geneticist; Henry Sessions Souttar, surgeon; Keith Sykes, professor of clinical anaesthesia; Alexander Cuthbert Turnbull, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology; Hubert Maitland Turnbull, pathologist; Patrick David Pat Wall, neuroscientist; John Wood, surgeon; Oliver Murray Wrong, physician and nephrologist; ● Twenty four deaths: Charles Cassidy Bass, American physician; Thomas Bowdler, English physician and expurgator; George Calvert, surgeon; Colin Chisholm, surgeon and medical writer; William David Coolidge, American physicist and engineer; Joshua Dixon, physician and biographer; Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky, Ukrainian born, American geneticist and evolutionary biologist; John Fuller, surgeon and historian; Giovanni Battista Grassi, Italian physician and zoologist; John Hill, physician and actor; Colin Mackenzie, physician and obstetrician; Christopher Nugent, physician; Nicholas Robinson, physician; John Rutty, physician; William Small, physician; Solomon Sawrey, surgeon; Albert Schweitzer, medical missionary; Edward Lawrie Tatum, American geneticist; Catharine van Tussenbroek, Dutch physician; August von Wassermann, German bacteriologist; Walter Wade, Irish surgeon, physician, and botanist; Thomas Willis, physician and anatomist; Sun Yat-sen, Chinese physician, politician, and revolutionary; ● Nine biomedical texts published, written by Alexander of Tralles, Mary Baker, Johan Fabricius, Guglielmo da Saliceto, Joseph Hooker, Nicolas Lémery, Francesco Stelluti and Federico Cesi, Flavius Vegetius Renatus, and Edward Vedder; ● Clinical therapies introduced by George Airy (lenses for astigmatism), The Cheesebrough Manufacturing Company (Vaseline petroleum jelly); George and Gladys Dick (antitoxin for scarlet fever), Johann Rudolf Glauber (Glauber's salts), George F Green (electric dental drill), Andrew Taylor Still (osteopathy), and William Withering (digitalis); ● Genetic, chemical, biochemical, physiological, anatomical, and pathological observations by Thomas Benton Cooley, Charles Darwin, Joseph Goldberger and Fred Wilbur Tanner, Oscar Hertwig, Melchior Neumayr, Joseph Priestley, and Anton van Leeuwenhoek; ● Establishment of the Menninger Clinic and the Japan Endocrine Society; ● Epidemics of diphtheria, measles, and plague; ● Nobel prizes awarded to John Warcup Cornforth (1925) and jointly to David Baltimore, Howard Martin Temin, and Renato Dulbecco (1975).