In 1957, after a lethal respiratory virus emerged out of Hong Kong, Maurice Hilleman studied the H2N2 strain and predicted a US pandemic. Despite his claims being ignored by government officials, pharmaceutical companies used Hilleman’s work to create a vaccine that saved an estimated one million American lives.

The first heart transplant in a human occurred on December 3rd, 1967. The six-hour surgery was performed by South African Christiaan Barnard and although the patient died 18 days later, it marks the first successful heart transplant in humans.

Having killed an estimated 30 million people worldwide, Cholera is an infectious disease caused by poor sanitation spreading the vibrio cholerae bacterium.

Marking the beginning of modern cardiac surgery, the first blue baby operation took place on November 29th, 1944, resolving 18-month-old Eileen Saxon’s heart condition.

How scientists discovered that the chemical weapon mustard gas reduced the size of cancer tumors, making it the first chemotherapy agent in medical history.

On September 28, 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic penicillin while conducting a series of experiments involving staphylococcal bacteria.

When a successful treatment of a patient’s diagnosis cannot be attributed to the method of treatment itself, but the patient’s belief in its healing properties.