The 1930s Medicine and Health: Chronology

1930:      Karl Landsteiner wins the Nobel Prize for his work in identifying and understanding the interrelationship of the blood groups A, B, AB, and O.

1930:      The common cold virus is discovered.

1930:      X ray becomes more widely used. It is used to examine a range of ailments, from brain tumors to problems with the spleen.

1930:     September The American Journal of the Diseases of Childhood recommends vitamin D as a protection against tooth decay. Antiseptic mouth washes, the article goes on, are of no benefit.

1931:      A polio epidemic brings the disease to public attention. At around the same time, scientists manage to grow the virus in the laboratory, taking the first step toward a vaccine.

1931:      The number of deaths from appendicitis continues to rise.

1931:     January Rheumatoid arthritis is discovered to be caused by an infection.

1931:     March 20 U.S. Federal Council of Churches approves the limited use of birth control methods.

1932:      The Benzedrine Inhaler is invented and used as a spray to clear nasal congestion.

1932:      At Northwestern University School of Medicine, scientists cure stomach ulcers using the mucus membrane from pigs' stomachs. The mucus is put in ice cream and fruit juices and eaten by patients.

1932:      A serum is developed to treat yellow fever.

1932:     April 4 Vitamin C is identified.

1933:      T. H. Morgan wins the Nobel Prize for medicine for his work on genetics.

1933:      The Blue Cross hospital insurance program is started.

1933:     April 5 The first operation to remove a cancerous lung is performed.

1933:     November 4 The drug aphadinitrophenol is used to treat obesity. It works by speeding up the patient's metabolism, but can be fatal in large doses.

1933:     December 11 Transplant surgery moves closer when parts of the thyroid and parathyroid gland are transferred from one patient to another.

1933:     December 21 Dried human blood serum is developed.

1934:      A Nobel Prize goes to George Hoyt Whipple, George Minot, and William P. Murphy for their therapy for anemia.

1934:      Evipan, an anesthetic from Germany, is first used in the United States at the George Washington University Medical School.

1934:      Liver extract cures the fatal blood disease agranulocytosis.

1935:      The first hospital for drug addicts is opened in Lexington, Kentucky.

1935:      The public becomes skeptical about human vaccination when trials of a polio vaccine go wrong and several children contract the disease from the vaccine; one dies.

1935:      Scientists at Yale find that when they remove the front part of the brains of monkeys, the animals become much calmer. The procedure, known as bilateral prefrontal lobotomy, is later used to treat violent psychiatric patients.

1935:     June 10 Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in New York.

1935:     June 20 The first mechanical heart keeps organs alive outside the body.

1936:      "Sulfa" drugs are introduced to the United States. They help treat various infectious diseases.

1936:      The Federal Children's Bureau reports that infant deaths are falling. But the number of mothers dying in childbirth is still high, at fifty-nine of every ten thousand live births.

1936:      At the Rockefeller Institute, the polio virus is grown in human brain cells.

1937:      The first evidence of a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is observed.

1937:      The National Cancer Institute is established.

1937:      An elixir of sulfanimide, used to treat bacterial infections, kills many children.

1937:     March 15 The first modern blood bank is set up at Cook County Hospital, Chicago.

1937:     August A study from the Federal Children's Bureau shows that 86 out of every 1,000 black children born do not survive. For white children, the figure is 53 per 1,000.

1937:     September 23 The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis is founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia.

1938:      Birth control is legal, except in Connecticut, Mississippi, and Massachusetts.

1938:     February 24 The first toothbrushes with nylon bristles go on sale in New Jersey.

1938:     April 12 New York becomes the first state requiring couples to have a medical examination before marrying.

1939:      New research leads to the revival of research into penicillin. This marks the start of widespread use of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections.