Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with January 23.

Events

1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) graduates from Geneva Medical College, becoming the first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree. Observed as Maternal Health Awareness Day to highlight issues specifically impacting women’s clinical care

1934 – Ladislas Joseph Meduna (1896-1964) performed first camphor-induced convulsive treatments in a patient with catatonic schizophrenia at Lipótmező Asylum. The treatment produced dramatic effects and after a course of nine seizures, the patient regained speech and mobility. Pre-dated the commencement of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in 1938

1942 – Curare enters anaesthetic practice. Canadian anaesthetist Harold Randall Griffith and third-year resident Enid Johnson gave 5 mL of curare (Intocostrin) to a 20-year-old plumber during an appendicectomy. The operating surgeon George T. Novinger remarked on the “fantastic muscle relaxation” afforded him. Note: Curare had been used in humans before (e.g., in convulsive shock therapy), but this case is widely treated as the first intentional clinical use of curare in general anaesthesia

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Births

1835 – Sir William Henry Broadbent (1835-1907), English physician; described Broadbent sign (1895), Broadbent’s hypothesis in hemiplegia (1866) and Broadbent’s Law

1897 – David Marsh Bosworth (1897-1979), American Orthopedic Surgeon; described the Bosworth Fracture (1947)

1899 – Eugen Bogdan Aburel (1899-1975), Romanian obstetrician and gynecologic surgeon; proposed a dual-pathway model of uterine pain transmission (1930 and development the first continuous epidural analgesia for labour pain (1931)

1926 – Mette Warburg (1926-2015), Danish ophthalmologist; described Walker-Warburg syndrome (1971)

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Deaths

1864 – Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793-1864) German physician; described Schönlein-Henoch purpura (1837), Schonlein Tricophyton (1839), and Schonlein Disease

1921 – Wilhelm Gottfried Waldeyer-Hartz (1836-1921), German anatomist. Described Waldeyer tonsillar ring (1884), Waldeyer neuron theory (1891), Waldeyer rectosacral fascia (1899), and Ovarian Fossa of Waldeyer

1972 – Johan Henning Waldenström (1877-1972), Swedish Orthopaedic surgeon; described Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease (LCPD) in 1909

2004 – Freida ‘Yarmalinsky‘ Young (1910-2004), English physician and pathologist; described Dyke-Young anaemia (1938)

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Further reading

• Cadogan M. History of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). LITFL
• Griffith HR, Johnson GE. The use of curare in general anesthesia. Anesthesiology 1942; 3(4): 418-420
• Dillane D, Chartrand D, Maltby R. Harold Griffith’s legacy: a tribute on the 75^th anniversary of the introduction of curare into anesthetic practice. Can J Anesth/J Can Anesth 2017; 64: 559–568