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.
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List of the most influential people in Medical,
#4001
René Leriche
1879 - 1955 (76 years)
Henri Marie René Leriche was a French vascular surgeon and physiologist. He was a specialist in pain, vascular surgery and the sympathetic trunk. He sensitized many who were mutilated in the first World war, he was the first to be interested in pain and to practice gentle surgery with as little trauma as possible.
Go to Profile#4002
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt
1885 - 1964 (79 years)
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt was a German neurologist and neuropathologist. Although he is typically credited as the physician to first describe the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, this has been disputed. He was born in Harburg an der Elbe and died in Munich.
Go to Profile#4003
William Alanson White
1870 - 1937 (67 years)
William Alanson White was an American neurologist and psychiatrist. Biography He was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents Alanson White and Harriet Augusta Hawley White. He attended public school in Brooklyn. A young White was influenced by philosopher Herbert Spencer; After White's death, one writer recalled that White "was never seriously shaken from Spencer's hopeful evolutionary catechism, which at the age of 13 he had accepted as the key to all knowledge".
Go to Profile#4004
Alfons Maria Jakob
1884 - 1931 (47 years)
Alfons Maria Jakob was a German neurologist who worked in the field of neuropathology. He was born in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria and educated in medicine at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Strasbourg, where he received his doctorate in 1908. During the following year, he began clinical work under the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin and did laboratory work with Franz Nissl and Alois Alzheimer in Munich.
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Mathieu Orfila
1787 - 1853 (66 years)
Mathieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila was a Spanish toxicologist and chemist, the founder of the science of toxicology. Role in forensic toxicology If there is reason to believe that a murder or attempted murder may have been committed using poison, a forensic toxicologist is often engaged to examine pieces of evidence such as corpses and food items for poison content. In Orfila's time the primary type of poison in use was arsenic, but there were not any reliable ways of testing for its presence. Orfila created new techniques, refined existing techniques and described them in his first treatise,...
Go to Profile#4006
Korbinian Brodmann
1868 - 1918 (50 years)
Korbinian Brodmann was a German neuropsychiatrist who is known for mapping the cerebral cortex and defining 52 distinct regions, known as Brodmann areas, based on their cytoarchitectonic characteristics.
Go to Profile#4007
Fatima Jinnah
1893 - 1967 (74 years)
Fatima Jinnah was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman. She was the younger sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and the first governor-general of Pakistan. She was the Leader of the Opposition of Pakistan from 1960 until her death in 1967.
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Antoni Cieszyński
1882 - 1941 (59 years)
Antoni Cieszyński was a Polish physician, dentist and surgeon. Cieszyński was a professor and head of the Institute of Stomatology at Lviv University. He became the editor and publisher of Polska Dentystyka in 1930; the journal was renamed Polska Stomatologia and Słowiańska Stomatologia . Among his contributions to dentistry are the rules of isometry that allow for the bisecting angle to accurately reproduce dimensions in x-radiology, and extraoral anæsthetising techniques.
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Franz von Rinecker
1811 - 1883 (72 years)
Franz von Rinecker was a German pharmacologist and physician, born in Schesslitz near Bamberg. He studied medicine at Munich and Würzburg, earning his medical degree in 1834. In 1838 he became professor of pharmacology at the University of Würzburg. Some of his more prominent students and assistants were Emil Kraepelin, Franz von Leydig, Ernst Haeckel, Richard Geigel, Hermann Emminghaus and Carl Gerhardt, who later succeeded Rinecker at the department of pediatrics. In addition, he was responsible for the appointment of Albert von Kölliker and Rudolf Virchow to the medical faculty.
Go to Profile#4010
Alfred Newton Richards
1876 - 1966 (90 years)
Alfred Newton Richards was an American pharmacologist. Richards, along with Wearn, is credited with the method of renal micropuncture to study the functioning of kidneys in 1924. Career Richards was born in Stamford, New York the son of Rev. Leonard E. Richards and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Burbank. He was educated at the Stamford Seminary and Union Free School. He then studied at Yale University.
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George T. Pack
1898 - 1969 (71 years)
George T. Pack was an American surgeon who specialized in the treatment of patients with cancer. Biography Pack was born on a farm in Antrim, Ohio. When he gave a lecture as a graduate student at Ohio State University, Dr. Winternitz of Yale University invited him to continue lecturing at the Yale Department of Pathology only to learn after his arrival that he was not even a medical student. He enrolled at Yale and graduated with a medical degree in 1922. In 1925 he became Professor of Pathology at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. In 1926 he went to New York to start as an intern at Memorial Cancer Center.
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Justus Christian Loder
1753 - 1832 (79 years)
Justus Ferdinand Christian Loder was a German anatomist and surgeon who was a native of Riga. Biography In 1777 Loder earned his medical doctorate at the University of Göttingen, and the following year was appointed professor of surgery and anatomy at the University of Jena, where he practiced medicine for the next 25 years. At Jena he was responsible for the establishment of an anatomical theatre and an Accouchierhaus . In 1780-81, at the expense of the Duke of Weimar, he took a scientific journey to France, England and Holland, a trip in which he made the acquaintance of several well-known ...
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Fedor Krause
1857 - 1937 (80 years)
Fedor Krause was a German neurosurgeon who was native of Friedland . Biography He originally studied music at the Conservatoire in Berlin, and later switched to medicine, earning his doctorate at Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1883 he became a medical assistant to Richard von Volkmann at the surgical university clinic at Halle. Afterwards, he was a pathologist at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt am Main , a surgeon at the city hospital at Hamburg-Altona , and later head of the surgical department at Augusta Hospital in Berlin. In 1901 he became an associate professor at the University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#4014
Nathan Cooley Keep
1800 - 1875 (75 years)
Nathan Cooley Keep was a pioneer in the field of dentistry, and the founding Dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Biography Keep was born in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, on December 23, 1800. Adept with his hands, he became interested in dentistry following an apprenticeship with a local jeweler. In 1821, he moved to Boston and graduated from Harvard Medical School with an M.D. in 1827. He practiced dentistry for 40 years, was hailed for his proficiency, and in 1843 was awarded an honorary D.D.S. by the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Keep invented and manufactured many dental tools and is credited with being one of the first to manufacture porcelain teeth.
Go to Profile#4015
Gabriel Anton
1858 - 1933 (75 years)
Gabriel Anton was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. He is primarily remembered for his studies of psychiatric conditions arising from damage to the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia. Academic career He was a native of Saaz, Bohemia, and in 1882 received his medical doctorate at Prague. In 1887 he traveled to Vienna in order to work with Theodor Meynert , who was to become an important influence to Anton's medical career. In 1891 he moved to Innsbruck, where he served as an associate professor of psychiatry and director of the university clinic. Later , he relocated to the Universi...
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Karl-Axel Ekbom
1907 - 1977 (70 years)
Karl-Axel Ekbom was a Swedish neurologist. He is mostly known for his detailed description of restless legs syndrome . Ekbom started his medical studies in Stockholm in 1928 and was licensed in 1934. He received the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1945. After working at the Karolinska Institute from 1945 to 1958, he became Professor of Neurology at the University of Uppsala where he worked until 1974.
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Adam Gruca
1893 - 1983 (90 years)
Adam Gruca was a famous Polish orthopaedist, inventor, and surgeon. He is considered to be the founder of modern orthopedic surgery in Poland. Gruca also invented various orthopaedic instruments and appliances.
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Jean Lhermitte
1877 - 1959 (82 years)
Jacques Jean Lhermitte was a French neurologist and neuropsychiatrist. Early life and education Lhermitte was born in Mont-Saint-Père, Aisne, son of Léon Augustin Lhermitte, a French realist painter. Following his early education at Saint-Etienne, he studied in Paris and graduated in medicine in 1907. He specialised in neurology and became Chef-de-clinique for nervous diseases in 1908, Chef de laboratoire in 1910, and professeur agrégé for psychiatry 1922.
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Stewart Duke-Elder
1898 - 1978 (80 years)
Sir William Stewart Duke-Elder was a Scottish ophthalmologist, a dominant force in his field for more than a quarter of a century. Life Duke-Elder was born in the manse in Tealing near Dundee. His father, Rev Neil Stewart Elder, was the village minister of the Free Church of Scotland. His mother was Isabelle Duke, daughter of Rev John Duke of the Free Church in Campsie, Stirlingshire.
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Franz König
1832 - 1910 (78 years)
Franz König was a German surgeon. The son of a physician, he was born in Rotenburg an der Fulda. In 1855 he received his doctorate from the University of Marburg, and was later district wound surgeon in Hanau. Afterwards he was a professor of surgery at the universities of Rostock and Göttingen , and eventually at the Charité-Berlin, where in 1895 he succeeded Heinrich Adolf von Bardeleben. In 1904 he was succeeded at the Charité by Otto Hildebrand.
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Theodor Meynert
1833 - 1892 (59 years)
Theodor Hermann Meynert was a German-Austrian psychiatrist, neuropathologist, and anatomist born in Dresden. Meynert believed that disturbances in brain development could be a predisposition for psychiatric illness and that certain psychoses are reversible.
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Jules François
1907 - 1984 (77 years)
Émile Jules Marie Joseph François was a Belgian ophthalmologist. Biography François received his medical degree at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1930 and specialized in ophthalmology and ophthalmic surgery. He went into private practice in ophthalmology in Charleroi. He remained active there as a scientific researcher and in 1942 became a professor at Ghent University and the director of Ghent University's eye clinic.
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Hans Gustav Wilhelm Steinert
1875 - 1911 (36 years)
Hans Gustav Wilhelm Steinert was a German neurologist best known for publishing the first description of myotonic dystrophy. Early life and career Steinert was born in Dresden to Otto Steinert, a lawyer, and his wife Louise. From 1893 Steinert studied philosophy and medicine at the Universities of Leipzig, Freiburg, Berlin and Kiel, qualifying as a doctor in 1898.
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Derek Denny-Brown
1901 - 1981 (80 years)
Derek Ernest Denny-Brown OBE was a New Zealand-born neurologist. Working in Oxford, London and Boston, he made major contributions to the field of neurology, such as the development of electromyography, physiology of micturition and the treatment of Wilson's disease.
Go to Profile#4025
Ernst Remak
1849 - 1911 (62 years)
Ernst Julius Remak was a German neurologist who was the son of famed neurologist Robert Remak and the father of the mathematician Robert Remak . He received his education at the Universities of Breslau, Berlin, Würzburg, Strasbourg and Heidelberg, and obtained the degree of M.D. in 1870. At Heidelberg, he was a student of neurologist Wilhelm Heinrich Erb . Afterwards he took part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. After serving as assistant in the department for nervous diseases at the Charité Hospital, Berlin from 1873 to 1875, he established himself as a neurologist in the German capit...
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Christopher John Bulpitt
#4027
Wylie J. Dodds
#4028
Adolf Strümpell
1853 - 1925 (72 years)
Ernst Adolf Gustav Gottfried Strümpell, from 1893 von Strümpell , was a Baltic German neurologist. Life Strümpell was born in Neu-Autz, Courland , the son of the philosopher Ludwig Strümpell . After study in Dorpat and Leipzig, in 1875 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Leipzig, where he had as instructors Carl Wunderlich , Karl Thiersch and Carl Ludwig . In 1883 he was an associate professor at Leipzig, and from 1886 to 1903 was a full professor at the University of Erlangen, succeeding Wilhelm Olivier Leube as director of the medical clinic. Afterwards he was a profes...
Go to Profile#4029
Robin Fåhræus
1888 - 1968 (80 years)
Robert Sanno Fåhræus, born 15 October 1888 in Stockholm, died 18 September 1968 in Lund, was a Swedish medical researcher noted for his contributions to hemorheology. Biography Fåhræus was the son of art historian Klas Fåhraeus and actress Olga Björkegren. He commenced studies at Karolinska Institute in 1908, where he received his medical license in 1922. Before that, in 1921, he had completed his research doctorate with the title The suspension-stability of the blood. He became associate professor of experimental pathology at the Karolinska Institute in 1922. He was professor of pathology at...
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L. M. Guttman Sokoloff
#4031
Julius Pohl
1861 - 1942 (81 years)
Julius Pohl was an Austrian-German pharmacologist. From 1879 to 1883 he studied medicine at the German University in Prague, where afterwards he worked as an assistant to Franz Hofmeister in the pharmacology institute. In 1892 he received his habilitation for pharmacology and pharmacognosy, and three years later became an associate professor. In 1897 he succeeded Hofmeister as chair of pharmacology at the university. In 1911 he relocated to the University of Breslau as successor to Wilhelm Filehne. In 1926 he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
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John Duncan
1839 - 1899 (60 years)
John Duncan, LLD FRCSEd FRSE was a Scottish surgeon best known for his surgical teaching at the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine. He was a pioneer of the use of electricity in surgery both for surgical cautery and for tumour necrosis. On the death of his father James Duncan in 1866 he became a director of the major drug manufacturer Duncan Flockhart & Co, which had been founded by his grandfather, also John Duncan . He served as President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh 1889 to 1891.
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Bernhard Pollack
1865 - 1928 (63 years)
Bernhard Pollack was a German neuroanatomist and ophthalmologist practicing in Berlin. He held the post of Professor of Ophthalmology at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. In addition to medical practice, he was a student of Moritz Moszkowski and a renowned pianist, having performed with Fritz Kreisler and with the violinist Joseph Szigeti.
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Albrecht Theodor Middeldorpf
1824 - 1868 (44 years)
Albrecht Theodor Middeldorpf was a German surgeon. He studied medicine at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, receiving his medical doctorate in 1846. As a student, his instructors included Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Johannes Peter Müller and Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach. Following graduation, he worked as assistant under Purkyně at Breslau for a year, then embarked on a study trip to Vienna and Paris. In 1853 he became an associate professor of surgery and ophthalmology at Breslau, and soon afterwards, was named head surgeon of the Allerheiligen-Hospital. In 1856 he became a full professor and director of the surgical-ophthalmologic clinic.
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Frank Lynn Iber
#4036
Peter Allebeck
#4037
Ken W. M.d. Heaton
#4038
Anton Gordonoff
1893 - 1966 (73 years)
Anton Gordonoff was a Swiss pharmacologist and toxicologist of Russian origin. Gordonoff studied pharmacology at the Universities of Bern and Nancy and finished his studies in 1921. In 1926 he received his habilitation from the University of Bern. Later the same university appointed him a professor of pharmacology and toxicology; he headed the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine and was also a member of the Swiss Commission on Medicine and Drugs and of the Swiss Association for Clinical Neurophysiology.
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John Cabot
1450 - 1498 (48 years)
John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.
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Henry Miller
1913 - 1976 (63 years)
Henry George Miller was Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University. Career Miller was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire and studied medicine at Newcastle College of Medicine, now part of Newcastle University, from 1931 to 1937. Whilst there he served as secretary and president of the students' union. He spent time working at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, before serving in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
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Myron Duker Jay S. Yanoff
#4042
Erhard Riecke
1869 - 1939 (70 years)
Rudolf Erhard Riecke was a German dermatologist and venereologist. He studied medicine at the universities of Munich and Halle, receiving his doctorate in 1895. In 1902 he obtained his habilitation for dermatology at the University of Leipzig, and in 1908 became an associate professor. From 1914 onward, he was a professor of dermatology at the University of Göttingen, where in 1932 he was named academic rector. In 1917 he was appointed director of the new university policlinic for skin and venereal diseases.
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Ragnvald Ingebrigtsen
1882 - 1975 (93 years)
Ragnvald Ingebrigtsen was a Norwegian physician who is regarded a pioneer in the development of surgery in Norway. He was born in Hammerfest, and was married to actress Gerd Egede-Nissen from 1922 to 1940, and to the sister of his first wife, Gøril Havrevold, from 1962. He graduated as cand.med. in 1907, and worked as a physician in Stavanger from 1908 to 1911. He then worked two years at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, where he studied neurosurgery, and further studied bacteriology and histology in Paris. He was appointed professor in surgery at the University of Oslo from 1928. ...
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Edwin Bramwell
1873 - 1952 (79 years)
Edwin Bramwell FRSE FRCPE was a Scottish neurologist. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1933 to 1935. Life He was born in North Shields on 11 January 1873 the son of Martha and Sir Byrom Bramwell. He was educated at Cheltenham College. He then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh graduating MB ChB in 1896.
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Gil Yosipovitch
#4046
Sheldon H. Preskorn
#4047
Hermann Löhlein
1847 - 1910 (63 years)
Christian Adolf Hermann Löhlein was a German obstetrician and gynecologist. In 1870, he obtained his medical doctorate following studies at the universities of Jena and Berlin. Afterwards he spent several years at Berlin as an assistant in the clinic of Eduard Arnold Martin . From 1875 to 1888, he was a lecturer in obstetrics and gynecology in Berlin, followed by a professorship at the University of Giessen. Here he was successor to Max Hofmeier as chair of OB/GYN, becoming university rector in 1898. At Giessen he was also editor of the Gynäkologische Tagesfragen .
Go to Profile#4048
Kenneth L. Melmon
#4049
Joseé E. Leysen
#4050
James Lawrence Cabell
1813 - 1889 (76 years)
Dr. James Lawrence Cabell was an American sanitarian and author. Life He was born in Nelson County, Virginia, the son of Dr. George Cabell, Jr., and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1833. He then studied medicine in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Paris, and became Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the University of Virginia, where he was chairman of the faculty in 1846 and 1847. Cabell was a full professor at the School of Medicine for 52 years and was an early pioneer of the sanitary preparation of the surgical patient following Lister's principles.
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