List of physicians
This is a list of famous physicians in history:
Physicians famous for their role in advancement of medicine
Physicians famous for their role in advancement of medicine
- William Osler Abbott (1902β1943) – co-developed the Miller-Abbott tube
- Thomas Addis (1881β1949) β pioneered urine testing and the study of renal diseases
- Virginia Apgar (1909β1974) β anesthesiologist who devised the Apgar score used after childbirth
- Hans Asperger (1906β1980) β Austrian paediatrician after whom Asperger’s Syndrome is named
- Jean Astruc (1684β1766) β wrote one of the first treatises on syphilis
- AverroΓ«s (1126β1198)
- Avicenna (980β1037) β Persian physician
- Frederick Banting (1891β1941) β isolated insulin
- Christiaan Barnard (1922β2001) β performed first heart transplant
- Charles Best (1899β1978) β assisted in the discovery of insulin
- Norman Bethune (1890β1939) β developer of battlefield surgical techniques
- Theodor Billroth (1829β1894) β founding father of modern abdominal surgery
- Charaka Indian physician
- Jean-Martin Charcot (1825β1893) β pioneering neurologist
- Charles R. Drew (1904β1950) β blood transfusion pioneer
- Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902β1959) important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine.
- Galen (129 β c. 210) β Roman physician and anatomist
- Garcia de Orta (1501β1568) β revealed herbal medicines of India, described Cholera
- Christiaan Eijkman (1858β1930) β pathologist, studied beriberi
- Pierre Fauchard father of dentistry
- Girolamo Fracastoro (1473β1553) β wrote on syphilis, forerunner of germ theory
- Sigmund Freud (1856β1939) β founder of psychoanalysis
- Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (born 1923) β studied Kuru, Nobel prize winner
- William Harvey (1578β1657) β English physician, described the circulatory system
- Ernst Haeckel (1834β1919) β physician and anatomist
- Henry Heimlich (born 1920) β inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver and the Vietnam War era Chest Drain Valve
- Orvan Hess (1906β2002) β Fetal heart monitor and first successful use of Penicillin
- Hippocrates (c. 460β370 BCE) β Greek father of medicine
- Ashoka Jahnavi-Prasad – introduced sodium valproate as a safer alternative to lithium in bipolar disorders
- Edward Jenner (1749β1823) β English physician popularized vaccination
- Carl Jung (1875β1961) β Swiss psychiatrist
- Leo Kanner (1894β1981) β Austrian-American psychiatrist known for work on autism
- Seymour Kety (1915β2000) β influential American neuroscientist
- Tsendiin Khaidaw β reviver and innovator of traditional Mongolian medicine
- Robert Koch (1843β1910) β formulated Koch’s postulates
- Theodor Kocher β thyroid surgery and first surgeon to win the Nobel Prize
- Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781β1826) β inventor of the stethoscope
- Janet Lane-Claypon (1877β1967) β pioneer of epidemiology
- Joseph Lister (1827β1912) β pioneer of antiseptic surgery
- Richard Lower (1631β1691) β studied the lungs and heart
- Amato Lusitano (1511β1568) β discovered venous valves, studied blood circulation
- Madhav (8th century A.D.) β medical text author and systematizer
- Maimonides (1135β1204)
- Marcello Malpighi (1628β1694) β Italian anatomist, pioneer in histology
- Otto Fritz Meyerhof (1884β1951) β studied muscle metabolism (Nobel prize)
- George Richards Minot (1885β1950) β Nobel prize for his study of anemia
- Charles Horace Mayo (1865β1939) β co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- William James Mayo (1861β1939) β co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- William Worrall Mayo (1819β1911) β co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- Richard Morton (1637β1698) β identified tubercles in consumption (phthisis) of lungs; basis for modern name tuberculosis.
- Egas Moniz (1874β1955) β developed Lobotomy and brain artery angiography.
- William McBride β discovered teratogenicity of thalidomide
- Herbert Needleman β scientifically established link between lead poisoning and neurological damage; key figure in successful efforts to limit lead exposure
- Charles Jean Henri Nicolle (1866β1936) β microbiologist who won Nobel prize for work on typhus
- Gary Onik – inventor and pioneer of ultrasound guided cryosurgery for both the prostate and the liver
- William Osler (1849β1919) β called the “Father of Modern Medicine”
- Ralph Paffenbarger β conducted classic studies demonstrating conclusively that active people reduce their risk of heart disease and live longer
- Paracelsus (1493β1541)
- Ambroise ParΓ© (1510β1590) β advanced surgical wound treatment
- Wilder Penfield (1891β1976) β pioneer in neurology
- Joseph Ransohoff (1915β2001) β neurosurgeon who invented the modern technique for removing brain tumors
- Rhazes (c. 854 β 925) (Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi)
- Jonas Salk (1914β1995) β developed a vaccine for polio
- Lall Sawh (born 1951) β Trinidadian Surgeon/Urologist and pioneer of Kidney transplantation in the Caribbean
- Ignaz Semmelweis (1818β1865) β a pioneer of avoiding cross-infection β introduced hand washing and instrument cleaning
- John Snow (1813β1858) β anaesthetist and pioneer epidemiologist who studied cholera
- Sushruta (c. 500 BCE) β Indian physician and pioneering surgeon
- Thomas Sydenham (1642β1689) β clinician
- James Mourilyan Tanner (born 1920) β developed Tanner stages and advanced auxology
- Helen B. Taussig (1898β1986) β founded field of pediatric cardiology, worked to prevent thalidomide marketing in the US
- Carlo Urbani (1956β2003) β discovered, and died from, SARS
- Andreas Vesalius (1514β1564) β Belgian anatomist, often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy.
- Vidus Vidius (1508β1569) First professor of Medicine at the College Royal and author of medical texts.
- Rudolf Virchow (1821β1902) β German pathologist, founder of fields of comparative pathology, cellular pathology.
- Allen Oldfather Whipple (1881β1963) β devised the Whipple procedure in 1935 for treatment of pancreatic cancer
- Carl Wood in vitro fertilization
- Ole Wormius (1588β1654) β pioneer in embryology
- Sir Magdi Yacoub (born 1935) β One of the leading developers of the techniques of heart and heart-lung transplantation
- Boris Yegorov (1937β1994) Russian – First physician in space, 1964
Physicians otherwise notable as practitioners
Physicians otherwise notable as practitioners
- Maimonides (1135β1204) – Physician of the Grand Vizier Alfadhil as well as Sultan Saladin of Egypt
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836β1917) – first British woman to practice as a doctor
- Emily Barringer (1876β1961) – American, and first female ambulance surgeon and the first woman to secure a surgical residency
- Elizabeth Blackwell (1821β1910) – first woman to practice modern medicine
- Sir Horace Evans – UK royal physician
- Jack Kevorkian (born 1928) – right-to-assisted-death advocate
- Alphonse Laveran (Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran) (1845β1922) – parasitology
- Johann Friedrich Struensee (1737β1772) – royal physician of Christian VII of Denmark
- Paul Rohmer (1876β1977) french physician considered as the father of the modern paediatrics in the east corner of France
Physicians famous chiefly as eponyms
Physicians famous chiefly as eponyms
See also Medical eponyms
Among the better known eponyms:
- Thomas Addison (1793β1860) – Addison’s disease
- Alois Alzheimer (1864β1915) – Alzheimer’s disease
- Albert Calmette (1863β1933)- Bacillus Calmette-GuΓ©rin (BCG), a vaccine for tuberculosis
- Carlos Chagas (1879β1934) – Chagas disease
- Jean-Martin Charcot (1825β1893) – Maladie de Charcot, Charcot joints, Charcot’s triad, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
- Burrill Bernard Crohn (1884β1983) – Crohn’s disease
- Camillo Golgi (1843β1926) – Golgi apparatus
- Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738β1814) – Guillotine
- Charles Mantoux (1877β1947) – Mantoux test for tuberculosis
- Antoine Marfan (1858β1942) – Marfan syndrome
- Silas Weir Mitchell (1829β1914) – Mitchell’s disease
- James Paget (1814β1899) – Paget’s disease
- James Parkinson (1755β1824) – Parkinson’s syndrome
- Hans Asperger – Asperger syndrome
- Karl Adolph von Basedow – Basedow disease
- Paul Broca – Broca’s area
- David Bruce – Brucellosis
- Denis Parsons Burkitt – Burkitt lymphoma
- Harvey Cushing – Cushing’s disease
- John Langdon Down – Down syndrome
- Bartolomeo Eustachi – Eustachian tube
- Gabriele Falloppio – Fallopian tube
- Ernst GrΓ€fenberg – GrΓ€fenberg spot (G-spot)
- Gerhard Armauer Hansen – Hansen’s disease
- Thomas Hodgkin – Hodgkin’s disease
- George Huntington – Huntington’s disease
- Moritz Kaposi – Kaposi sarcoma
- Daniel Elmer Salmon – Salmonella
- Georges Albert Γdouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette – Tourette syndrome
- Gunner Stickler – Stickler syndrome
Physicians famous as criminals
Physicians famous as criminals
- John Bodkin Adams – British suspected serial killer.
- Karl Brandt (1904β1948) – Nazi human experimentation
- Baruch Goldstein (1956β1994) – assassin
- Shiro Ishii – headed Japan’s Unit 731 during World War II which conducted human experimentation for weapons and medical research
- Radovan KaradΕΎiΔ (born 1945) – accused of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia
- Jack Kevorkian (born 1923) – convicted of second-degree murder, Michigan, April 13, 1999
- Josef Mengele (1911β1979) – known as the Angel of Death, Nazi human experimentation
- Samuel Mudd (1833β1883) – condemned to prison for setting the leg of Abraham Lincoln‘s assassin
- Herman Webster Mudgett (1860β1896) – American serial killer
- Herta Oberheuser (1911β1978) – Nazi human experimentation
- Richard J. Schmidt – American physician who contaminated his girlfriend with AIDS-tainted blood
- Harold Shipman (1946β2004) – British mass murderer
- Michael Swango (born 1953) – American serial killer
Physicians famous as writers
Physicians famous as writers
see also A Roster of Physician Writers
Among the better known writers:
- Mikhail Bulgakov (1891β1940) – Russian novelist and playwright
- Anton Chekhov (1860β1904) – Russian playwright
- Robin Cook – American author of bestselling novels, wrote Coma
- Michael Crichton (born 1942) – American author of Jurassic Park.
- A. J. Cronin (1896β1981) – Scottish novelist and essayist, author of The Citadel.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859β1930) – British author of Sherlock Holmes fame.
- John Keats (1795β1821) – English poet
- W. Somerset Maugham (1874β1965) – British novelist and short story writer, wrote Of Human Bondage.
- Alfred de Musset (1810β1857) – French playwright, discovered sign of syphilitic aortitis
- FranΓ§ois Rabelais (1483β1553) – French author of Gargantua and Pantagruel.
- Friedrich von Schiller (1759β1805), German writer, poet, essayist and dramatist.
- William Carlos Williams (1883β1963) – American poet and essayist
And others:
- John Arbuthnot – author
- Patrick Abercromby (1656 β c. 1716) – historian
- Janet Asimov – (born 1926) (nΓ©e Janet O. Jeppson). American psychiatrist, wife of Isaac Asimov.
- Arnie Baker – cycling coach
- Sir Thomas Browne (1605β1682) – British writer
- Georg BΓΌchner – German dramatist
- Ludwig BΓΌchner – German philosopher
- Thomas Campion – poet, composer
- Deepak Chopra – Indian/American writer of self-help and health books
- Alex Comfort (1920β2000) – British writer and poet, author of The Joy of Sex.
- Michael Cook – American writer of suspense novels
- Ctesias (5th century B.C.) – Greek historian
- Erasmus Darwin (1731β1802). British poet, grandfather of Charles Darwin
- Georges Duhamel (1884β1966) – French writer, dramatist, poet and humanist
- Havelock Ellis (1859β1940) – British writer and poet, author of The Psychology of Sex
- Victor Frankl (1905β1997) – Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, author of Man’s Search for Meaning
- Samuel Garth (1661β1719) – British author and translator of classics
- William Gilbert
- Oliver Goldsmith – American author
- Atul Gawande, surgeon and New Yorker medical writer.
- H. Richard Hornberger author of M*A*S*H
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809β1894) – American essayist
- Arthur Johnston (1587β1641) – poet
- Dimitris P. Kraniotis – Greek poet
- Ronald Laing – Scottish writer and poet, leader of the anti-psychiatry movement.
- StanisΕaw Lem (born 1929) – Polish author of science-fiction (Solaris)
- Carlo Levi (1902β1975) – Italian novelist and writer
- David Livingstone (1813β1873) – Scottish medical missionary, explorer of Africa, travel writer
- Adeline Yen Mah – Chinese-American author.
- Jean-Paul Marat (1743β1793) – French writer, a leader of French Revolution, assassinated in bathtub
- Paolo Mantegazza (1831β1910) – Italian writer, wrote a science fiction book, L’Anno 3000
- Silas Weir Mitchell (1829β1914) – American writer
- Mungo Park
- JoΓ£o GuimarΓ£es Rosa – Brazilian writer
- Sir Ronald Ross (1857β1932) – British writer and poet, discovered the malarial parasite.
- Theodore Isaac Rubin (born 1923). American author of Lisa and David.
- Oliver Sacks (born 1933). British essayist (e.g. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat)
- Albert Schweitzer (1875β1965) – German theologian, philosopher, organist, musicologist
- Frank Slaughter (1908β2001) American bestseller author, wrote (Doctor’s Wives)
- Tobias Smollett (1721β1771) – author
- Benjamin Spock (1903β1988) – American pediatrician, wrote Baby and Child Care.
- Lewis Thomas (1913β1993) – American essayist and poet
- Sir Henry Thompson, British surgeon and polymath.
- Vladislav VanΔura (1891β1942) – Czech writer, scriptwriter and film director
- Francis Brett Young (1884β1954) – English novelist and poet
Physicians famous as politicians
Physicians famous as politicians
- Bashar Al-Assad – President of Syria
- Ibrahim Al-Jaafari – Prime minister of Iraq
- Iyad Allawi – interim Prime Minister of Iraq
- Salvador Allende (1908β1973) – Chilean president
- Emilio Alvarez MontalvΓ‘n – Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
- Arnulfo Arias – Panaman President
- Michelle Bachelet – Current Chilean President
- Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1898β1997) – Prime Minister, President and later dictator of Malawi
- Louis Blanqui – French revolutionary socialist
- Frederick William Borden – Canadian MP and minister of the Militia
- Bob Brown – parliamentry leader of the Australian Greens
- Gro Harlem Brundtland (born 1939) – first Norwegian female prime minister and Director-General of the World Health Organization
- Georges Clemenceau (1841β1929) – French statesman
- Margaret Chan – Director General of the WHO and former Director of Health of Hong Kong
- York Chow – Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food of Hong Kong
- Tom Coburn (born 1948) – U.S. Senator
- Howard Dean (born 1948) – American politician
- FranΓ§ois Duvalier (1907β1971) – also known as Papa Doc – President and later dictator of Haiti
- AntΓ΄nio Palocci Filho – Brazilian politician, Finance Minister
- Christian Friedrich, Baron von Stockmar – Anglo-Belgian statesman
- Bill Frist (born 1952) – United States Senate Majority Leader
- Hedy Fry (born 1941) – Canadian politician, member of parliament
- Che Guevara Latin American revolutionary leader
- George Habash – founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- John Pope Hennessy – former Governor of Hong Kong
- Grant Hill (politician) – former Canadian MP
- Wilbert Keon – Canadian senator
- Mohammad Reza Khatami – Iranian politician
- Juscelino Kubitscheck – Brazilian president
- Jean-Paul Marat – French revolution leader
- Keith Martin – Portuguese Canadian MP
- William McGuigan – mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia
- Mahathir bin Mohamad – Malaysian prime minister
- Brendon Nelson – Australian politician
- Agostinho Neto (1922β1979) – MPLA leader and president of Angola
- David Owen – British politician
- Ron Paul (born 1935) – American politician
- Andrew Refshauge – Australian politician
- Navin Ramgoolam – Prime minister of Mauritius
- Maxime Ferrari – Minister for Development Seychelles
- JosΓ© Rizal (1861β1896) – Filipino revolutionary and national hero
- ThΓ©odore Robitaille – Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Quebec MNA and Senator
- Bidhan Chandra Roy – Indian politician
- HΓ©lio de Oliveira Santos – Brazilian politician, mayor of Campinas
- TabarΓ© VΓ‘zquez – Current Uruguayan President
- Bette Stephenson – Ontario MPP and former Minister of Labour, Minister of Education and Minister of Colleges and Universities
- Sun Yat-Sen (1866β1925) – Founder of republican China
- Donald Matheson Sutherland – MP and former minister of National Defence
- Sir Charles Tupper (1821β1915) – Prime Minister of Canada (1896) and Premier of Nova Scotia (1864β1867); High Commissioner in Great Britain (1884-1887)
- Ali Akbar Velayati (born 1945) – Iranian Foreign Minister from 1981 to 1997.
- William Walker (soldier) (1824β1860) – ruler of Nicaragua
- Dave Weldon – US congressman and autism activist
- Ray Lyman Wilbur (1875β1949) – United States Secretary of the Interior, president of Stanford University
- Thomas Wynne (1627β1691) – Physician to William Penn, speaker of the first two Provincial Assemblies in Philadelphia (1687 & 1688)
- Yeoh Eng-kiong – former Secretary for Health and Welfare of Hong Kong
Physicians famous for other activities
Physicians famous for other activities
- Abd-el-latif β traveller
- Anderson Ruffin Abbott
- Keith Ablow β television psychiatrist
- Jane Addams β social activist
- Georg Agricola β mineralologist
- David Alter β inventor
- Oswald Avery (1877β1955) β molecular biologist who discovered DNA carried genetic information
- Ali Bacher β cricketer
- Josiah Bartlett β American statesman and chief justice of New Hampshire
- T. Romeyn Beck (1791β1855) β American forensic medicine pioneer
- Maximilian Bircher-Benner (1867β1939) β nutritionist
- Herman Boerhaave β humanist
- Alexander Borodin β composer
- Thomas Bowdler β censor
- Shahrul Ezam Borhan β College of Public Care Medicine of Malaysia [1]
- Lafayette Bunnell β explorer of Yosemite Valley
- Gerolamo Cardano
- John Caius (1510β1573) β physician and educator
- Graham Chapman β British comedian of Monty Python fame
- Laurel B. Clark (1961β2003) β American Astronaut, killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
- Arthur Dee
- Sextus Empiricus (2ndβ3rd century C.E.) β philosopher
- Gordon S. Fahrni
- Niels Ryberg Finsen
- Luigi Galvani β physicist
- Pierre Gassendi (1592β1655) β philosopher
- William Gilbert (1544β1603) β physician and physicist
- W. G. Grace β cricketer
- Nehemiah Grew β botanist
- Samuel Hahnemann β founder of homeopathy
- John Hall (died 1635) β son-in-law of William Shakespeare
- Armand Hammer β entrepreneur
- Samuel Gridley Howe β abolitionist
- Hermann von Helmholtz β physicist
- Jan Baptist van Helmont (1577β1655) β physiologist
- Mae Jemison (born 1956) β astronaut
- Stuart Kauffman (born 1939) β biologist
- John Harvey Kellogg
- Cesare Lombroso (1835β1909) β based his system of criminology on physiognomy
- John Lovelock (1910β1949) β Olympic athlete
- John McAndrew (born 1927) β All-Ireland Gaelic Footballer
- June McCarroll β inventor of lane markings
- James McHenry (1753β1816) β signer of the United States Constitution
- Archibald Menzies β naturalist
- Franz Mesmer (1734β1815) β proponent of mesmerism and the idea of animal magnetism
- Jonathan Miller β television presenter and stage director
- Paul MΓΆhring (1710β1792) β zoologist, botanist
- Maria Montessori β educator
- Boris V. Morukov β cosmonaut
- Lee “Final Table” Nelson β professional poker player
- Haing S. Ngor β Oscar winning film actor
- Nostradamus β French esoterist
- Heinrich Wilhelm MatthΓ€us Olbers (1758β1840) β astronomer
- Caspar Peucer
- Christian Hendrik Persoon β South African botanist
- Claude Perrault β architect
- Philippe Pinel
- Pope John XXI
- Mowaffak al-Rubaie β human rights advocate, member of the Interim Iraqi Governing Council
- John Ray β plant taxonomer
- Peter Mark Roget β English lexicographer
- Jacques Rogge β sports official
- Benjamin Rush β signer of the United States Constitution
- Daniel Rutherford (1749β1819) β chemist
- Felix Savart β physicist
- Alfred Schopenhauer β philosopher
- Albert Schweitzer β humanist
- Michael Servetus (1511β1553) β burnt at the stake by Calvinists for heresy
- Rob Sitch β comedian
- SΓ³crates (born 1954, SΓ³crates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira) β Brazilian football (soccer) player, one of the best midfielders ever, is a doctor of medicine and earned the degree while concurrently playing professional football, to top it he holds a doctorate degree in philosophy
- L.Subramaniam β violonist
- James Hudson Taylor (1832β1905) β British missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission
- Norman Earl Thagard β astronaut
- Debi Thomas (born 1967) β Olympic figure skater
- William E. Thornton β astronaut
- Nasiruddin al-Tusi β astronomer
- William Walker β Latin American Adventurer
- Andrew Wakefield β conducted studies on disputed link between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, which had many serious consequences
- John Clarence Webster β Canadian historian
- Wilhelm Weinberg β with G.H. Hardy, developed the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium model of population genetics
- Michael Welner β Forensic psychiatrist
- JPR Williams β rugby union player
- Thomas Young β scientist
- Ayman al-Zawahiri β Al-Qaeda leader
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