March 2 – On This Day in Medical History
Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with March 2.
Events
1753 — The Meath Hospital (Ospidéal na Mí) opened in Dublin’s Liberties as a voluntary hospital serving “a part of town… generally thronged with the industrious poor,” later becoming a major teaching centre associated with landmark Irish clinicians including John Cheyne, Robert Graves, William Stokes, and Francis Rynd
Births
No major medical milestones added for this date yet — this page is being expanded
Deaths
1830 – Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring (1755-1830), Prussian polymathic physician. Credited with the naming the 12 pairs of cranial nerves in his graduation thesis (1788), discovering and illustrating the macula lutea (yellow spot) in the human retina (1791)
1969 – William Norman Pickles (1885–1969), English general practitioner; described Bornholm Disease in Wensleydale (1933) and published the influential Epidemiology in country practice (1939)
Further reading
- Soemmerring ST. Dissertatio inauguralis anatomica de basi encephali et originibus nervorum cranio egredientium. Göttingen, 1778.
- Pearce JMS. Samuel Thomas Soemmerring (1755-1830): The Naming of Cranial Nerves. Eur Neurol. 2017;77(5-6):303-306.
BA MA (Oxon) MBChB (Edin) FACEM FFSEM. Emergency physician, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Passion for rugby; medical history; medical education; and asynchronous learning #FOAMed evangelist. Co-founder and CTO of Life in the Fast lane | On Call: Principles and Protocol 4e| Eponyms | Books |