The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Medical,
#4101
Arthur Kreindler
1900 - 1988 (88 years)
Arthur Kreindler was a Romanian neurologist of Jewish origin, academic, professor of neurology at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, and director of the Institute of Neurology Research of the Romanian Academy.
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Nikolaus Friedreich
1826 - 1882 (56 years)
Nikolaus Friedreich was a German pathologist and neurologist, and a third generation physician in the Friedreich family. His father was psychiatrist Johann Baptist Friedreich , and his grandfather was pathologist Nicolaus Anton Friedreich , who is remembered for his early description of idiopathic facial paralysis, which would later be known as Bell's palsy.
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Antonin Poncet
1849 - 1913 (64 years)
Antonin Poncet was a French surgeon. Son of Jean Joseph Poncet and Catherine Jeanne Chabalier, he was inspired by his grandfather Jean-Pierre Antoine Chabalier, surgeon in the Imperial Army. He studied medicine in Lyon, where he served as interne des hôpitaux. He was a member of the Lyon ambulance corps during the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1878 became a member of the surgical section of the Lyon faculty of medicine. In 1883 he attained the chair of operative medicine in Lyon.
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Gaspare Tagliacozzi
1545 - 1599 (54 years)
Gaspare Tagliacozzi was an Italian surgeon, pioneer of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Biography Tagliacozzi was born in Bologna. Tagliacozzi began his medical studies in 1565. He studied at the University of Bologna under Gerolamo Cardano for medicine, Ulisse Aldrovandi for natural sciences and Julius Caesar Aranzi for anatomy. At the age of twenty-four, he earned his degree in philosophy and medicine.
Go to Profile#4105
Carl Lange
1834 - 1900 (66 years)
Carl Georg Lange was a Danish physician who made contributions to the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. Born to a wealthy family in Vordingborg, Denmark, Lange attended medical school at the University of Copenhagen and graduated in 1859 with a reputation for brilliance. After publishing on the neurological pathologies of aphasia, bulbar palsy, tabes dorsalis, and pathologies of the spinal cord, he achieved world fame with his 1885 work "On Emotions: A Psycho-Physiological Study". In it, he posited that all emotions are developed from, and can be reduced to, physiological reactions to stimuli.
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Holly Broadbent Sr.
1939 - 1977 (38 years)
Birdsall Holly Broadbent Sr. was an American orthodontist who is credited with developing and introducing the technique of cephalometric roentgenography to orthodontics. He also devised the cephalometer, which accurately positions a patient's head with reference to the x-ray source.
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Ernst Siemerling
1857 - 1931 (74 years)
Ernst Siemerling was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Müssow near Greifswald. In 1882 he obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Marburg. In 1883-84 he was an assistant at the psychiatric clinic at Halle, and afterwards an assistant to Karl Westphal at the Berlin psychiatric clinic.
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Arthur Robertson Cushny
1866 - 1926 (60 years)
Arthur Robertson Cushny FRS FRSE LLD , was a Scottish pharmacologist and physiologist who became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Life Cushny was born on 6 March 1866 in Fochabers, Moray, Scotland, the fourth son of Rev John Cushny of Speymouth and his wife, Catherine Ogilvie Brown.
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Heinrich von Ranke
1830 - 1909 (79 years)
Heinrich von Ranke was a German physiologist and pediatrician. He was the son of theologian Friedrich Heinrich Ranke and the brother of anthropologist Johannes Ranke . Famed historian Leopold von Ranke was his uncle.
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John Bell
1763 - 1820 (57 years)
John Bell was a Scottish anatomist and surgeon. Life Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; an elder brother of Sir Charles Bell. After completing his professional education at Edinburgh, he carried on from 1790 in Surgeons' Square an anatomical lecture-theatre, where, in spite of much opposition, due partly to the unconservative character of his teaching, he attracted large audiences by his lectures, in which he was for a time assisted by his younger brother Charles. From 1793 to 1795, he published Discourses on the Nature and Cure of Wounds. He is considered, along with Pierre-Joseph Desault...
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Eugen von Hippel
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
Eugen Adolf Arthur von Hippel was a German ophthalmologist born in Königsberg. Family Eugen is the son of Arthur von Hippel , brother of Robert von Hippel and Richard von Hippel, and uncle of Arthur R. von Hippel.
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Edmund Rose
1836 - 1914 (78 years)
Edmund Rose was a German surgeon who was a native of Berlin. He studied medicine in Berlin and Würzburg, and subsequently was an assistant to surgeon Robert Ferdinand Wilms in Berlin from 1860 until 1864. From 1867 to 1881, he was a professor of surgery at the University Hospital of Zurich, and afterwards a professor at the Bethanien Hospital in Berlin . Among his assistants at Zurich was surgeon Rudolf Ulrich Krönlein.
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J. William White
1850 - 1916 (66 years)
James William White was an American surgeon from Philadelphia. After participating in the Hassler expedition to the West Indies, he became a respected surgeon, teacher and author at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, with which he was associated from 1874 to 1916. He was John Rhea Barton Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital from 1900 to 1912 and professor emeritus until his death.
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Georges de Morsier
1894 - 1982 (88 years)
Georges de Morsier was a Swiss neurologist. He studied natural sciences and medicine in Geneva and subsequently went to Paris as a resident to psychiatrist Gaétan de Clérambault. In 1928 he became Privatdozent for neurology and psychiatry and in 1941 associate professor at Geneva University, where in 1960, he was appointed professor of neurology. From 1962 onward, he was director of the neurological polyclinic of Geneva University Hospital . From 1946 to 1949 he was also president of the Swiss Neurological Society.
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Arthur Heffter
1859 - 1925 (66 years)
Arthur Carl Wilhelm Heffter was a German pharmacologist and chemist. He was the first chairman of the German Society of Pharmacologists, and was largely responsible for the first Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology. He isolated mescaline from the peyote cactus in 1897, the first such isolation of a naturally occurring psychedelic substance in pure form. In addition, he conducted experiments on its effects by comparing the effects of peyote and mescaline on himself.
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Alfred Carl Graefe
1830 - 1899 (69 years)
Alfred Carl Graefe was a German ophthalmologist born in Martinskirchen. From 1850 to 1854 he studied medicine at the universities of Halle, Heidelberg, Würzburg, Leipzig and Prague, then from 1855 to 1858, worked as an assistant to his cousin, ophthalmologist Albrecht von Graefe, in Berlin. During this time period, he also spent time in Paris, where he studied with Frédéric Jules Sichel and Louis-Auguste Desmarres.
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Nagai Nagayoshi
1844 - 1929 (85 years)
Nagai Nagayoshi was a Japanese pharmacist, best known for his study of ephedrine. Early life Nagai was born in Myōdō District, Awa Province in what is now Tokushima Prefecture, as the son of a doctor and started studying rangaku medicine at the Dutch Medical School of Nagasaki in 1864. While in Nagasaki, he made the acquaintance of Ōkubo Toshimichi, Itō Hirobumi, and other future leaders of the Meiji government.
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Otto Marburg
1874 - 1948 (74 years)
Otto Marburg was an Austrian neurologist known for his contributions to the understanding of multiple sclerosis and for advances in neurooncology. Marburg was born in Römerstadt in Moravia, Austria-Hungary . He was Jewish. From 1919 to 1938, he was head of the Neurological Institute at the University of Vienna. Following the 1938 Anschluss, Marburg was forced to emigrate to the United States as a refugee. Arriving in New York City, he joined Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons as a clinical professor of neurology.
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Georg Axhausen
1877 - 1960 (83 years)
Georg Axhausen was a German oral and maxillofacial surgeon. He studied medicine at Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie in Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1901. Later on, he worked in the surgical clinic at Kiel under Heinrich Helferich and in the institute of pathology at Friedrichshain Hospital in Berlin under Ludwig Pick . From 1909 to 1924 he worked in the surgical clinic at the Berlin-Charité.
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Alfred Gilman Sr.
1908 - 1984 (76 years)
Alfred Zack Gilman was an American pharmacologist best known for pioneering early chemotherapy techniques using nitrogen mustard with his colleague, Louis S. Goodman. The pair also published the classic textbook The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics in 1941, and Gilman served as an editor for its first six editions. Gilman served on the faculties of the Yale School of Medicine, the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he founded the Department of Pharmacology. He was a member of U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
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Georg Lotheissen
1868 - 1941 (73 years)
Georg Lotheissen was an Austrian surgeon born in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1892 he earned his medical doctorate in Vienna, and following graduation was an assistant to Emil Zuckerkandl , and a surgical apprentice under Theodor Billroth and Carl Gussenbauer . From 1895 to 1901, he served as first assistant to Viktor von Hacker at the surgical clinic at Innsbruck, where in 1899 he received his habilitation in surgery. In 1902 he returned to Vienna, where in 1915 he became an associate professor.
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Saib Shawkat
1896 - 1984 (88 years)
Saib Shawkat was an Iraqi doctor and politician who was an Arab nationalist leader in Iraq. Medical career He was from an upscale patriotic Baghdadian family of Georgian origin and studied at a medical school in Istanbul 1913-1918, completing post-graduate studies in general surgery in Germany. Shawkat was the first Iraqi doctor to teach anatomy at the Iraqi Royal College of Medicine of which he became the dean later in the 1940s. He was one of the pioneers in general surgery in Iraq, serving as Director General of Baghdad Hospital in the 1930s. In 1932 he became a founding committee member of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society.
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Max Saenger
1853 - 1903 (50 years)
Max Saenger was a German obstetrician and gynecologist who was a native of Bayreuth. He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, then continued with graduate studies in OB/GYN and pathology under Carl Siegmund Franz Credé . He later became a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Leipzig, and in 1890 was appointed professor of OB/GYN at the German University in Prague. In 1894 he co-founded the journal Monatsschrift für Geburtshilfe und Gynäkologie.
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Giovanni Di Guglielmo
1886 - 1962 (76 years)
Giovanni Di Guglielmo was a Brazilian-born Italian hematologist, best known for the discovery of acute erythroid leukemia. Life and career Di Guglielmo was born in São Paulo, the son of Italian immigrants from Andretta. His parents decided to move back to Italy when Giovanni was 6 years old. After completing his high school studies in Avellino, in 1911 he graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Naples.
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Karl Wilhelm Ernst Joachim Schönborn
1840 - 1906 (66 years)
Karl Wilhelm Ernst Joachim Schönborn was a German surgeon who was a native of Breslau. He studied medicine at the Universities of Breslau, Heidelberg, Göttingen and Berlin, receiving his medical doctorate in 1863. At Berlin, he worked as an assistant to Robert Ferdinand Wilms at Bethanien Hospital and to Bernhard von Langenbeck at the university hospital. In 1871 he became a professor at the university surgical clinic at Königsberg. From 1886 until his death in 1906, he was a professor of surgery at the University of Würzburg.
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William H. Dietz
#4127
Bernard J. Cigrand
1866 - 1932 (66 years)
Bernard John Cigrand , a dentist, has a strong claim to being considered the father of Flag Day in the United States. Born in Waubeka, Wisconsin, Cigrand practiced dentistry in Chicago, Batavia, and Aurora, and was the third dean of Columbian Dental College, now the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry, serving in that post from 1903 to 1906.
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Pierre François Olive Rayer
1793 - 1867 (74 years)
Pierre François Olive Rayer was a French physician who was a native of Saint Sylvain. He made important contributions in the fields of pathological anatomy, physiology, comparative pathology and parasitology.
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Otto Krayer
1899 - 1982 (83 years)
Otto Hermann Krayer was a German-American physician, pharmacologist and university professor. He was the only German scientist who refused on moral grounds to succeed a colleague who had been dismissed from his professorial chair by the National-Socialist government for anti-semitic reasons. Krayer voiced his opinion publicly and aggressively. The medical historian Udo Schagen entitled his historical analysis of Krayer: "Widerständiges Verhalten im Meer von Begeisterung, Opportunismus und Antisemitismus" or 'Resistant Behaviour in a Sea of Enthusiasm, Opportunism and Antisemitism'.
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Martin Kirchner
1854 - 1925 (71 years)
Martin Kirchner was a German hygienist and bacteriologist, known for his work in the fight against tuberculosis. He studied at the universities of Halle and Berlin, receiving his medical doctorate in 1878. From 1887 he worked as a physician under Robert Koch at the institute of hygiene in Berlin. In 1894 he obtained his habilitation for hygiene at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, and in 1900 became an associate professor at the University of Berlin. From 1911 to 1919 he was head of the medical department at the Ministry of the Interior.
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Mary Harris Thompson
1829 - 1895 (66 years)
Mary Harris Thompson, MD, , was the founder, head physician and surgeon of the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children, renamed Mary Harris Thompson Hospital after her death in 1895. She was one of the first women to practice medicine in Chicago.
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Noboru Ogasawara
1888 - 1970 (82 years)
Noboru Ogasawara was a Japanese physician specializing in leprosy. He was an assistant professor at the Department of Kyoto Imperial University. He insisted that leprosy was not incurable and diathesis was an important factor in the development of leprosy. He was against strict segregation of leprosy patients and met strong opposition at a Congress of leprosy.
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Junichiro Shimoyama
1853 - 1912 (59 years)
Junichiro Shimoyama was a Japanese pharmacologist during the Meiji era. Biography Shimoyama enrolled in The First University District Medical School, now part of the University of Tokyo, in 1873. He graduated in 1878. In 1886, Shimoyama received his Ph.D. from Strasbourg University. In 1887, Shimoyama returned to Tokyo to become a professor of the Department of Pharmacy. He became professor in the laboratory of pharmacognosy in 1893. Shimoyama was the first person in Japan to be awarded a Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences degree in 1899.
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William Fletcher Shaw
1878 - 1961 (83 years)
Sir William Fletcher Shaw was an English obstetrics physician and gynaecologist who was most notable along with William Blair-Bell for creating the British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists . He was Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Manchester.
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Aubrey Otis Hampton
1900 - 1955 (55 years)
Aubrey Otis Hampton was an American radiologist remembered for describing Hampton's hump and Hampton's line. He graduated from Baylor College of Medicine in 1925, undertook his internship in Dallas and worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1926. He became chief of radiology at Massachusetts General in 1941, serving as chief of radiology at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. from 1942 to 1945. Hampton was said to be one of the most accurate radiologists in diagnosing during his era.
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Friedrich Meggendorfer
1880 - 1953 (73 years)
Friedrich Meggendorfer was a German psychiatrist and neurologist. Life Born in Bad Aibling, Bavaria, he was intended to take over the local colonial goods store of his ancestors. He enjoyed an excellent international education aimed at preparing him for this role. However, his life's goal has always been to become a physician, and finally, he had persuaded his father to agree and to sponsor medical studies. During World War I he was stationed in Turkey as a medical assistant of the German imperial navy. There he learnt much about the Turkish culture and was able to translate ancient Arabic m...
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Wilhelm Baum
1799 - 1883 (84 years)
Wilhelm Baum was a German surgeon born in Elbing. He studied medicine in Königsberg, Göttingen and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1822. At the University of Göttingen, he was influenced by Konrad Martin Langenbeck , Karl Gustav Himly and Friedrich Benjamin Osiander . After graduation, he spent a year as a surgical assistant to Karl Ferdinand von Graefe in Berlin, followed by several years of study in Austria, Italy, France and the British Isles . In Paris he attended lectures and clinics by Guillaume Dupuytren , Dominique Jean Larrey and Jean Cruveilhier . During his years of travel, h...
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Ushitaro Matsuura
1865 - 1937 (72 years)
was a Japanese dermatologist at Kyoto Imperial University who, after retiring before the specified age of retirement, was engaged in a crusade against alcohol and prostitution. He named the disease pityriasis rotunda and his diagnosis is still being used today.
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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.
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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
#4144
Wylie J. Dodds
#4145
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...
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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
#4148
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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