Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health Department of Sociomedical Sciences Technology for the Public Health Good Initiative

Stepansky
Medical
Encyclopedia

A Historical Timeline with Commentary

By Paul E. Stepansky, Ph.D.

A summation of Paul E. Stepansky's life-long study of medical history, the Stepansky Medical Encyclopedia has been 27 years in the making.

TimelineEncyclopediaBibliography
1,338Timeline events502Encyclopedia entries600Bibliography entries

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  1. EncyclopediaConvulsions (female) and masturbation (male), parallel among Enlightenment physicians
  2. EncyclopediaLaudable pus, persistence of notion into 19th c
  3. EncyclopediaSepsis, reliance on “clinical gestalt” to diagnose in early 2000s
  4. EncyclopediaSepsis, “failed” definition of in 1960s and 1970s
  5. Timeline1893: Isolation of bacterial exotoxin from bacteria
  6. Timeline1937: Hodgkin’s disease, prophylactic radiation in treatment of
  7. Timeline1942: Birth of chemotherapy by Goodman and Gilman
  8. Timeline1956: First use of linear accelerator in radiotherapy
  9. Timeline1962: Radiotherapist Henry Kaplan at Stanford Hospital leads first randomized clinical trial for Hodgkin’s patients
  10. Timeline1964: U.S. Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health

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