December 22 – On This Day in Medical History

Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with December 22.

Events

1971 – Médecins Sans Frontières is officially formed. In Paris, French doctors and medical journalists launched MSF in response to the humanitarian failures they’d witnessed in Biafra and disaster zones. After an initial organising meeting on December 20 (statutes/charter/board), the wider group voted to mobilise on December 22, 1971, marking the organisation’s public “birth.”

2010 – Highest blood alcohol recorded (to date). Police near Queenstown (Eastern Cape, South Africa) arrested a driver reported to have a blood alcohol concentration of 1.6 g/100 mL, around 32× South Africa’s legal limit (0.05 g/100 mL). A reminder that “impairment” is not a binary state

Births

1903 – Haldan Keffer Hartline (1903-1983), American physiologist; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1967) with George Wald and Ragnar Granit for his work analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision

Deaths

1788 – Sir Percivall Pott (1714-1788), English surgeon. Described Pott fracture (1768), Pott puffy tumour, Pott cancer and Pott disease

1911 – Odilon-Marc Lannelongue (1840-1911), French surgeon; introduced a surgical technique for the treatment of craniosynostosis and provided first description of Osgood-Schlatter disease (1878)

2021 – Owen Conor Ward (1923-2021), Irish paediatrician and cardiologist; described Romano-Ward Syndrome (1964)

Further reading
On This Day in Medical History

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 |