The 1920s Medicine and Health: Chronology
The 1920s Medicine and Health: Chronology
1920: The Menninger Clinic, which specialized in treating individuals with mental health afflictions, opens in Topeka, Kansas.
1920: Phenobarbital is introduced as a treatment for epilepsy.
1920: Researchers discover that cancer removes 35 percent of the oxygen from the human cells.
1921: Carl Jung publishes Psychological Types, in which he offers his views on such innovative concepts as introverted and extroverted personality traits.
1921: Marie Stopes opens the first family planning clinic in London.
1922: The U.S. Federal Narcotics Control Board is established. It is empowered to ban the importation of nonmedicinal narcotics.
1922: It is reported that more than one hundred radiologists have died from X-ray-induced cancer.
1922: Frederick Hopkins discovers glutathione, a sequence of three amino acids that are essential for the utilization of oxygen by a cell.
1922: Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser use an oscilloscope to study electrical impulses in a single nerve fiber.
1922: Samuel Torrey Orton announces completion of a study in which he links emotional disturbances to neurological disorders.
1922: The Sex Side of Life, a family planning pamphlet, is declared obscene, and cannot be mailed in the United States.
1923: The first birth control clinic opens in New York City under the direction of Margaret Sanger.
1924: Seale Harris discovers that sugar can cause hyperinsulinism (a condition resulting from excessive secretions of insulin in the body). He determines that diets should include decreased amounts of sugar.
1924: Theodor Svedberg invents the ultra-centrifuge, a high-speed machine that makes it possible to isolate viruses.
1924: Rudolph Matas introduces the use of an intravenous saline solution to prevent dehydration.
1924: Heroin is outlawed in the United States as a prescription drug.
1924: Acetylene, a colorless, gaseous hydrocarbon (an organic compound made up of hydrogen and carbon) is used as an anesthetic.
1924: Faulty diphtheria vaccinations result in the deaths of forty-five people in Connecticut and New Hampshire.
1925: James B. Collip discovers parathormone, a hormone secreted by the parathyroid gland.
1925: February 2 A husky named Balto leads a team of sled dogs across 650 miles of snowy terrain, carrying diphtheria medicine which saves countless lives in Nome, Alaska.
1925: June At an international arms control and trade convention in Geneva, Switzerland, nations unite to ban the use of bacteriological and chemical weapons in wartime.
1926: Spiroptera carcinoma, a cancer caused by a parasite, is discovered.
1926: A chemical, later identified as acetylcholine, is shown to be involved in the transmission of nerve impulses.
1926: The General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, an international organization, is created in Germany.
1926: E. L. Thorndike publishes The Measurement of Intelligence, in which he describes how intelligence may be numerically calculated.
1926: James B. Sumner isolates and crystallizes urease, an enzyme.
1927: The first tetanus shots are administered to humans in France.
1927: The League of Nations sponsors a conference in The Hague, Netherlands, to explore the reasons behind a rash of vaccination-induced deaths in Europe.
1928: At the Third International Conference for Eugenics, one participant calls for the sterilization of 14 million Americans with low IQs.
1928: Research shows that prolactin, a pituitary hormone, causes the production of milk in breasts.
1929: Alexander Fleming reports his discovery of penicillin.
1929: Edward Doisy discovers theelin, a female sex hormone, in the urine of pregnant women.
1929: Adolph Butenandt determines the chemical structure of estrone, a female sex hormone.
1929: Manfred J. Sakel uses insulin shock as a treatment for schizophrenia.
1929: Jean Piaget proposes his theory of developmental psychology, in which he explains how individuals acquire knowledge.