The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Medical,
#3951
Thomas J. Walley
#3952
G.H. Monrad-Krohn
1884 - 1964 (80 years)
Georg Herman Monrad-Krohn , born in Bergen, Norway, is known for his work on the development of neurology early in the 20th century. He studied at the National Hospital, Queens Square in London, and often visited Paris, France to work in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital facilities. In 1917 he returned to Norway, and began studies at the Neurological University Clinic of Oslo , where he was appointed a Professor in 1922. In 1927 he became Professor of Neurology at the University of Oslo, and later Emeritus Professor of Neurology.. He retired from this professorial chair at the age of 70. His son, the computer engineer and entrepreneur Lars Monrad-Krohn was born in 1933.
Go to Profile#3953
Stanley J. Goldsmith
#3954
Walter Mercer
1890 - 1971 (81 years)
Sir Walter Mercer KBE FRSE FRCSEd FRCPE LLD was a Scottish orthopaedic surgeon. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1951 to 1956. He was affectionately known as 'Wattie.' His collection of anatomical specimens was donated to Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh, and is now known as the Walter Mercer Collection.
Go to Profile#3955
Vida Latham
1866 - 1958 (92 years)
Vida Annette Latham was a British-American dentist, physician, microscopist, and researcher, known for her work in publishing and her research on oral tumors, surgery, and anatomy. Early life and education Vida Latham was born in Lancashire in 1866 to a physician father. Her early education took place in Cambridge and Manchester. She earned her master's degree from the University of London in 1889; she published papers on tooth anatomy and pain in 1888 while working at a London dentist's office. She then moved to the United States because she could not practice in the UK with an American dentistry degree.
Go to Profile#3956
Anita K. Bahn
1920 - 1980 (60 years)
Anita Kaplan Bahn was an American epidemiologist, biostatistician, and cancer researcher. Education and career Bahn was originally from New York City. She left high school at the age of 15, and earned a bachelor's degree in biology four years later from Hunter College, together with a certification allowing her to teach high school biology. She would also go on to study "physics at New York City College; botany and bacteriology at Cornell University; mathematics and statistics at American University and at George Washington University", but without completing those programs to a graduate degr...
Go to Profile#3957
Arthur Schüller
1874 - 1957 (83 years)
Arthur Schüller was an Austrian medical doctor who served as professor at Vienna University and was the founder of the discipline of neuroradiology. He is credited with coining the term "Neuro-Röntgenologie" and he contributed particularly to three neurosurgical procedures; antero-cordotomy, cisternal hydrocephalic drainage and the transsphenoidal approach to pituitary tumours, and is associated with three bone diseases; the Hand–Schüller–Christian disease, osteoporosis circumscripta and cephalohaematoma deformans.
Go to Profile#3958
Gustav Biedermann Günther
1801 - 1866 (65 years)
Gustav Biedermann Günther was a German surgeon and orthopedist. From 1818 to 1824, he studied medicine and surgery at the University of Leipzig, obtaining his doctorate with the thesis "Analecta ad anatomiam fungi medullari". While still a student, he embarked on a scientific journey with ornithologist Ludwig Thienemann to Norway and Iceland. In 1825 he began work as an assistant to Johann Karl Georg Fricke in the surgical department at the general hospital in Hamburg. In 1829 he settled as a general practitioner in Hamburg, where in 1831 he founded an orthopedic institute.
Go to Profile#3959
Alexander Ellinger
1870 - 1923 (53 years)
Alexander Ellinger was a German chemist and pharmacologist. From 1887 he studied chemistry at the University of Berlin under August Wilhelm von Hofmann and at the University of Bonn as a pupil of August Kekulé. Afterwards, he studied medicine at the University of Munich, followed by work as an assistant in the institute of pharmacology at the University of Strasbourg. In 1897 he became an assistant to Max Jaffé in the laboratory of medicinal chemistry and experimental pharmacology at the University of Königsberg. In 1914 he was appointed professor of pharmacology at the newly established Univ...
Go to Profile#3960
Andrew Fyfe
1792 - 1861 (69 years)
Professor Andrew Fyfe FRSE FRCSE PRSSA PRMS was a Scottish surgeon and chemist. Following early studies on Fox Talbot's newly created photographic techniques he was one of the first to work out the theory behind positive rather than negative prints. He had an amateur interest in photography but appears not to have pursued his own theories and limited his experiments to ferns lying on chemical papers.
Go to Profile#3961
V. Ishwaraiah
1898 - 1983 (85 years)
V. Ishwaraiah MBBS, MRCP, FRFPS was an eminent professor of Pharmacology in India. He received his M.R.C.P with Pharmacology as special subject and F.R.F.P.S . He worked as lecturer in Pharmacology, Andhra Medical College to succeed Dr. B. B. Dikshit . He was promoted as Professor in 1943. He was transferred to Madras as Professor of Pharmacology for both Madras Medical College and Stanley Medical College.
Go to Profile#3962
Anton Drasche
1826 - 1904 (78 years)
Anton Drasche was an Austrian internist and epidemiologist. Biography Drasche studied medicine in Prague, Vienna and Leipzig, earning his doctorate in 1853. In Vienna, his instructors included Johann Ritter von Oppolzer, Carl von Rokitansky and Joseph Škoda. In 1858 he was habilitated for special pathology and therapy. and in 1872 was appointed physician-in-chief at the . On a recommendation from German hygienist Max Pettenkofer, he became an associate professor of epidemiology in 1874.
Go to Profile#3963
Margaret Arnstein
1904 - 1972 (68 years)
Margaret G. Arnstein was an American health expert who focused her efforts in nursing and public health. Throughout her life Arnstein worked for the United States public health sector and several American colleges, eventually becoming dean of the Yale School of Nursing in 1967. Arnstein also published multiple academic papers discussing nursing practices within the U.S health system of the time. Arnstein also participated in Congress discussions in relation to provisions given to the health sector by the state through the Second Supplemental Appropriation Bill of 1957. In her later career Mar...
Go to Profile#3964
Johnson Symington
1851 - 1924 (73 years)
Johnson Symington FRS FRSE FZS LLD was a British anatomist and zoologist. He was President of the Ulster Medical Society for 1896/7. He served as President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1904 to 1906. He is noted for his comparative studies of the brain of modern man and prehistoric man, and of man and other primates. From 1923 onwards Queen's University Belfast award a Symington Prize every year to junior anatomists in his honour.
Go to Profile#3965
Jurriaan ten Doesschate
1912 - 1977 (65 years)
Jurriaan ten Doesschate was a Dutch ophthalmologist and medical scientist, who specialized in physiological optics. Biography The son of ophthalmologist and art historian Gezienus ten Doesschate and of linguist Amelia Hermina Henrietta Kortebosch, he attended the Municipal Gymnasium in Utrecht before studying medicine in the same city .
Go to Profile#3966
Norman Purvis Walker
1862 - 1942 (80 years)
Sir Norman Purvis Walker FRCPE was a Scottish dermatologist, and physician-in-charge of the Skin Department at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He was also one of the first persons in Britain to benefit from the discovery of insulin as a treatment for diabetes.
Go to Profile#3967
August Knoblauch
1863 - 1919 (56 years)
August Knoblauch was a German neurologist. He was a nephew of chemist August Kekulé. He studied medicine and sciences at the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Strasbourg and Heidelberg. In 1888 he received his doctorate at the University of Heidelberg, where he studied under neurologist Wilhelm Heinrich Erb. In 1898 he was named head of the city infirmary in Frankfurt, then in 1914 was named director of the neurological clinic at the University of Frankfurt am Main.
Go to Profile#3968
Bernard G. Amend
1821 - 1911 (90 years)
Bernard G. Amend was a German-born pharmacist. He ran an important pharmacy and scientific supply business in New York, NY which was sold to Fisher Scientific in 1940. He is also known for contributing to the founding of the American Chemical Society and for his mineralogy collection.
Go to Profile#3969
Christopher Wren
#3970
Édouard Jeanselme
1858 - 1935 (77 years)
Antoine Édouard Jeanselme was a French dermatologist, known for his research of syphilis and leprosy. He was the author of numerous works with history of medicine themes . In 1883 he began work as a hospital intern, receiving his medical doctorate in 1888. In 1898–1900 he conducted research of leprosy in French Indo-China, during which time, he also conducted studies of beriberi, framboesia, syphilis and variola. In 1901 he became an associate professor, and in 1919 attained the chair of chair of dermatology and syphilology at the faculty of medicine in Paris.
Go to Profile#3971
Rudi Cormane
1925 - 1987 (62 years)
Rudi Harold Cormane was a Dutch dermatologist who pioneered research in immunofluorescence studies of the skin. During the Second World War he was interned in a Japanese camp where he received an education from other prisoners. After the war he gained entry to the University of Leiden in the Netherlands to study medicine, but it was interrupted in 1947 when an epidemic of polio caused paralysis of his legs.
Go to Profile#3972
Han Qing-quan
1884 - 1921 (37 years)
Han Qingquan was a Chinese doctor, educator and pioneer of modern medical service and public health in China. Biography Han was born in Cixi City, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in Qing Dynasty. His courtesy name was Shi-hong . From 1899 to 1902, Han studied in Hangzhou, at Hangzhou Yang-Zheng School and later at the Middle School of Hangzhou Prefecture .
Go to Profile#3973
Simon Holdin
1896 - 1975 (79 years)
Simon A. Holdin was Russian Empire-born clinician-oncologist . He was graduated in 1919 from Odessa National Medical University as a Doctor of Medicine. From 1923 to 1926 he worked as Lecturer at the Odessa Anatomical Pathology Institute and conducted experimental studies on chemical factors of carcinogenesis.
Go to Profile#3974
Love Gantt
1875 - 1935 (60 years)
Love Rosa Hirschmann Gantt , was an American physician based in South Carolina. Early life and education Love Rosa Hirschmann was born in Camden, South Carolina, the daughter of Solomon Hirschmann and Lena Nachman Hirschmann. Her family was Jewish; her father was an immigrant from central Europe.
Go to Profile#3975
Jørgen Pedersen
1914 - 1978 (64 years)
Jørgen Pedersen was an Epidemiologist. He is known for his hypothesis concerning the correlation of hyperglycemia during pregnancy and disease in later life. Life and work In 1952 he formulated the hypothesis that hyperglycemia in pregnant women might lead to hyperglycemia in their fetuses, causing complications in infancy and later life.
Go to Profile#3976
Marriott Fawckner Nicholls
1898 - 1969 (71 years)
Sir Marriott Fawckner Nicholls CBE, FRCS, was an English surgeon who specialised in the genitourinary tract. He served in the British Army in both the First and Second World Wars and was dean of the medical school at St George's Hospital for 20 years. At the age of 64 he became professor of surgery at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, where he maintained the position until his death five years later.
Go to Profile#3977
George Ian Scott
1907 - 1989 (82 years)
George Ian Scott CBE, FRSE, FRCSEd was a 20th-century Scottish ophthalmic surgeon who in 1954, became the first holder of the Forbes Chair of Ophthalmology at the University of Edinburgh. He specialised in neuro-ophthalmology, studies of the visual fields and diabetic retinopathy. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1967, Surgeon-Oculist to the Queen in Scotland from 1965 and president of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1972.
Go to Profile#3978
William E. Ashton
1859 - 1933 (74 years)
William Easterly Ashton was a noted gynecologist and surgeon. He also served in the United States Army as a regimental surgeon during World War I. Early life and education Ashton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 5, 1859, to Samuel Keen and Caroline M. Ashton. His brother is Thomas G. Ashton.
Go to Profile#3979
Robert Smith
1840 - 1885 (45 years)
Robert Smith FRCSE , also known as Bob Smith, was a Sierra Leonean medical doctor who served as an Assistant Colonial Surgeon in Sierra Leone during the late nineteenth century. Smith was the first African to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh after completing his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#3980
Jørn Olsen
#3981
Yasuhiko Asahina
1881 - 1975 (94 years)
Yasuhiko Asahina was a Japanese chemist and lichenologist. Early life During his childhood, Asahina developed an interest in plants. In 1902, he enrolled in the School of Pharmacy at Tokyo Imperial University, from which he graduated in 1905. Asahina stayed at the university to research the chemical principles of Chinese traditional medicine under Junichiro Shimoyama. His first paper, on styracitol isolation from Styrax obassia, was published in 1907. In 1909, Asahina travelled to Zurich to study phytochemistry under Richard Willstätter. He continued his research on chlorophyll until 1912, when he moved to Berlin.
Go to Profile#3982
Elise Käer-Kingisepp
1901 - 1989 (88 years)
Elise Käer-Kingisepp was an Estonian physician, pharmacologist, physiologist and sports medicine specialist. She was one of the founders of the Estonian Association of University Women and was the second female scientist to graduate from the University of Tartu in Estonia.
Go to Profile#3983
Otto Tunmann
1867 - 1919 (52 years)
Otto Tunmann was a German pharmacologist and phytochemist. He studied pharmacy at the Universities of Leipzig and Erlangen, obtaining his doctorate in 1900 from the University of Bern. Afterwards, he worked as a pharmacist in Schöneck, Vogtland. From 1905 he was an assistant to Alexander Tschirch at Bern, where he conducted studies in the fields of phytomicrochemistry, microchemical toxicology and forensic chemistry. In May 1919, Tunmann was appointed professor of pharmacognosy at the University of Vienna. He died in Innsbruck, Austria a few months later.
Go to Profile#3984
David M. Bosworth
1897 - 1979 (82 years)
David Marsh Bosworth was an American orthopedic surgeon and medical educator. He is remembered for describing the Bosworth fracture. Biography David Bosworth was born in New York City in 1897, the son of a minister. He attended the City College of New York and the University of Vermont, graduating B.A. cum laude in 1918. He studied medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, member of Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, graduating cum laude in 1921, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Go to Profile#3985
Regina Kapeller-Adler
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Regina Kapeller-Adler, born Regina Kapeller, was an Austrian biochemist who, in 1934, devised an innovative test for early pregnancy based on the detection of histidine in urine. As a Jew, she was forced to leave Austria following the country's annexation into Nazi Germany in the Anschluss and went to work with the noted geneticist Francis Crew at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#3986
James Woodhouse
1770 - 1809 (39 years)
James Woodhouse was an American surgeon and chemist. Biography He was the son of English emigrants to the United States. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1787, and from its medical department in 1792. In 1791 he served as a surgeon in General Arthur St. Clair's expedition against the western Indians. When Joseph Priestley declined to accept the chair of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1795, Woodhouse received the appointment, which he held until his death.
Go to Profile#3987
Clemens V. Rault
1896 - 1989 (93 years)
Clemens Vincent Rault was a rear admiral in the United States Navy and dean of the Georgetown University School of Dentistry. He served as the Chief of the United States Navy Dental Corps twice, from 1932 to 1933 and again from 1948 to 1950.
Go to Profile#3988
Kurt Singer
1885 - 1944 (59 years)
Kurt Singer was a German neurologist, musicologist, conductor and chairman of the Jüdischer Kulturbund. He was murdered in the Holocaust. Life Born in Kościerzyna, Singer, son of a rabbi, spent his youth in Koblenz. After graduating from high school he studied medicine, psychology and musicology. In 1908, he received his doctorate in medicine and initially worked as a neurologist at the Berlin Charité.
Go to Profile#3989
Louise Stevens Bryant
1885 - 1956 (71 years)
Louise Stevens Bryant was an American public health specialist, writer, editor and publicist. She was especially involved in the fields of human sexuality and maternal health, and was the executive secretary of Robert Latou Dickinson's Committee on Maternal Health from 1927 to 1935.
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Arthur Hutchinson
1889 - 1969 (80 years)
Arthur Cyril William Hutchinson FRSE was a British professor of dentistry. Life Hutchinson was born in Oldham on 26 July 1889, the son of Reverend William Roberts Hutchinson. He was raised in Oldham and educated at Oundle School. He studied dentistry at the University of Manchester, graduating with a BDS in 1911.
Go to Profile#3991
John Murray
1775 - 1807 (32 years)
John Murray was a seaman and explorer of Australia. He was the first European to land in Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated. He is notable for his explorations and surveying work in Victoria and New South Wales, including being the first European captain to enter Port Phillip Bay, then known as Narrm-Narrm by the local Aboriginal people, and exploring the area around present-day Melbourne.
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Lucy Mabel Hall-Brown
1843 - 1907 (64 years)
Lucy M. Hall-Brown was an American physician and writer. She was a general practitioner and a physician at the Sherborn Reformatory for Women, now the Massachusetts Correctional Instituion – Framingham.
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Ivan Gevorkyan
1907 - 1989 (82 years)
Ivan Khristoforovich Gevorkyan, born Hovannes Khachaturi Gevorkyan , was a Soviet Armenian surgeon and scientist who published 10 monographs and more than 230 scientific papers. His main research was dedicated to anesthesia, blood transfusion, the treatment of endarteritis of extremities and other surgical illnesses.
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Włodzimierz Godłowski
1900 - 1940 (40 years)
â Włodzimierz Józef Godłowski was a Polish neurologist and psychologist. A professor of the Stefan Batory University in Wilno , he was also an officer in the Polish Army during the German and Soviet invasion of Poland. He was made a prisoner of war by the Soviets in 1939 and was murdered in the 1940 Katyn massacre.
Go to Profile#3995
Dietfried Müller-Hegemann
1910 - 1989 (79 years)
Dietfried Müller-Hegemann was a German physician specialising in Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Neurology. Despite having joined the Communist Party in 1930, he was able to pursue his medical studies and career after 1933, becoming a military "staff doctor" when war broke out in 1939. Between 1944 and 1948 he was held as a prisoner of war by the Soviets. After that he was able to resume his medical career in the Soviet occupation zone / German Democratic Republic, achieving eminence both as a senior hospital physician and as a professor with the teaching chair in Psychiatry and Neurology at the prestigious Karl-Marx University in Leipzig.
Go to Profile#3996
Lloyd Turton Price
1873 - 1933 (60 years)
Lloyd Turton Price FRCPE was a 20th-century Scottish surgeon who was professor of surgery at the University of St Andrews. Life He was born in Shrewsbury in 1873. He was educated at Oswestry School. He then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh winning both the Lister Prize and the Crichton Research Scholarship. He graduated in 1901 with an MB ChB. In 1904 Price was awarded the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for his essay, “Congenital stenosis of the pylorus”.
Go to Profile#3997
Albrecht Wagner
1827 - 1871 (44 years)
Karl Ernst Albrecht Wagner was a German physician and surgeon. He studied medicine at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, receiving his doctorate in 1848 with the dissertation-thesis "De Spatulariarum anatome". He served as a military physician during the First Schleswig War, then in 1849–50 participated in a study tour to Paris and Vienna. Afterwards, he returned to Berlin as an assistant to surgeon Bernhard von Langenbeck. In 1852 he qualified as a lecturer, and during the following year was named a senior physician at the city hospital in Danzig.
Go to Profile#3998
Birger Malling
1884 - 1989 (105 years)
Birger Malling was a Norwegian ophthalmologist and educator. He was born in Bergen as a son of district stipendiary magistrate Michael Vilhelm Malling and Marie Eleonora Henrichsen . From 1913 he was married to Helga Seeberg Tønnessen . He attended Bergen Cathedral School. He finished his secondary education in 1902 and graduated with the cand.med. degree in 1910, proceeding to take the dr.med. degree in 1919.
Go to Profile#3999
James Jamieson
1875 - 1966 (91 years)
James Dalgleish Hamilton Jamieson FRSE FDSE was a Scottish dentist and author. Life He was born on 10 September 1875 at 52 Rankeillor Street, a ground floor and basement flat in Edinburgh’s South Side, the son of Agnes Boyd and her husband, James Jamieson , a surgeon. He was educated at George Watsons College. He then studied dentistry at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1899.
Go to Profile#4000
Robert William Johnstone
1879 - 1969 (90 years)
Robert William Johnstone CBE, FRCSEd, FRSE, FRCOG, was a Scottish obstetrician and gynaecologist. For some 20 years he was Professor of Midwifery and Gynaecology at the University of Edinburgh. He was a founding Fellow and subsequently vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He served as president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1943 to 1945.
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