Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with July 26.

Events

1797 – The Medical Repository, the first medical journal published in the United States, released its inaugural issue. The quarterly, printed in New York by T. & J. Swords, was edited by Samuel Latham Mitchill, Elihu Hubbard Smith, and Edward Miller, and ran from 1797 to 1824

1881 – William Stewart Halsted (1852-1922) performed one of the earliest recorded human-to-human blood transfusions in the United States. While visiting his sister Minnie in Albany, New York, he found her critically ill from postpartum haemorrhage. With no time to spare, Halsted drew blood from his own arm using a syringe and injected it directly into hers. He later recounted:

After checking the hemorrhage, I transfused my sister with blood drawn into a syringe from one of my veins and injected immediately into one of hers. This was taking a great risk but she was so nearly moribund that I ventured it and with prompt results.

Halsted letters, 1922

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Births

1904 – Marino Ortolani (1904-1983), Italian pediatrician; described the Ortolani sign and test (1936)

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Deaths

1868 – Heinrich Adolf Rinne (1819-1868), German otologist; described Rinne test (1834)

1925 – Bernhard Naunyn (1839-1925), German physician. Made significant contributions to Gallstone Disease (1892), Murphy Sign (1892), Courvoisier’s Law (1890), and introduced the concept and the term “acidosis”

1960 – Maud Leonora Menten (1879-1960) was a Canadian pathologist; described Michaelis-Menten equation (1913)

1895 – Charles Carroll Lund (1883-1972), American surgeon; described Lund and Browder Chart (1942)

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Further reading

• The Medical Repository 1797: Vol 1 Iss 1
• Kahn RJ, Kahn PG. The Medical Repository–the first U.S. medical journal (1797-1824). N Engl J Med. 1997 Dec 25;337(26):1926-30
• Halsted Letters. Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. 1952