disease detectives: the most awesome people in epidemiology

sigmund freud was a cocaine-addled a-hole

Virginia Apgar

she created a test to assess neonatal status with 5 categories, predicting infant survival with the Apgar score

Mantel and Haenszel

developed a statistical method for controlling confounding in case-control studies, allowing for improved comparisons between groups.

Austin Bradford Hill

pioneered the randomized controlled trial concept and established a set of 9 criteria to assess principles for causality in epidemiology

John Salk

an American pathologist that developed the polio vaccine (inactivated)

Paul Louis Simmond

determined that plague was carried on fleas on the back of rats

Joseph Lister

father of modern surgery, a brand of mouthwash (Listerine) was named after him

Archie Cochrane

Scottish physician that analyzed efficacy and effectiveness (book from 1971) of interventions in RCTs, pioneer of evidence-based medicine, one of the fathers of modern clinical epidemiology

John Snow

father of epidemiology, english physician & leader in development of anesthesia and medical hygiene, stomped on the miasma theory, used a dot map to solve the cholera outbreak in London, Broad Street (& violently ripped off the pump)

Hippocrates

father of modern medicine, discovered that clubbing of the fingers is associated with lung disease/cancer, saved Athens from 430 BC plague (Peloponnesian war)

John Graunt

father of demography (counting of people) and public health statistics, wrote the “Bills of Mortality”

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

introduced the British technique of smallpox inoculation (or variolation), controversy around her using smallpox sores to intentionally give someone a milder case of the disease

Percival Pott

chimney dude in London. the first to demonstrate that cancer can be caused by an environmental carcinogen, well-know surgeon

James Lind

found out citrus fruits were effective against scurvy, one of the first controlled clinical trials, navel-hygiene-typhus, used solar energy to clean water

Edward Jenner

father of immunology, pioneered first vaccine (variolae vaccinae - pustules of the cow), using smallpox sores to make people immune to smallpox

William Farr

british physicians that pioneered the quantitative study of morbidity and mortality. helped create first national vital statistics system and surveillance, developed a nosology from which the ICD (international developed

Ignaz Semmelweis

Hungarian physician showed that hand washing would drastically reduce deaths among women who had just delivered babies in hospitals, pioneer of antiseptic procedures 

Clara Barton

founder of red cross

Louis Pasteur

 discovered vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. Developed vaccines for cholera, anthrax, and rabies. Developed modern germ theory

Joseph Lister

“Father of modern surgery” His antisepsis system is the basis of modern infection control. Applied science of Germ theory to surgery. carbolic acid (phenol) as sterilizer

Robert Koch

further proof of germ theory; demonstrated that Mycobacterium tuberculosis was the causative agent for tuberculosis (creating the koch’s postulates) & showed that bacillus anthracis is the cause of anthrax.

Walter Reed

US army surgeon that discovered & proved the causes of yellow fever (mosquitoes)

Joseph Goldberger

linked poverty to disease; Found that Pellagra could be prevented with an improved diet.

Alexander Fleming

discovered penicillin

Bradford Hill

established Hill’s criteria and pioneered random controlled trials

Salvador Mazza

controlled trypanosomiasis in America

Albert Sabin

polish/american physician known for developing the oral polio vaccine, credited for the first polio vaccine WWII lieutenant colonel in US army medical crops & developed vaccine for japanese encephalitis

Alice Stewart

studied radiation induced illness of workers in Hanford plutonium production plant & x-ray effect in pregnancy leading to childhood leukaemia

Sir Richard Doll

proved correlation between smoking and lung cancer

John Salk

Created the first Polio vaccine.

Robert Gallo

scientist that shared discovery of the virus (HTLV, the only leukemia virus) that caused AIDS.

Luc Mantagnier

received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008 for his team’s discovery that a retrovirus, HIV, was the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, thought SARS-COV-2 was a bioengineered virus

David Fraser

discovered Legionnaires' disease in 1976, works for CDC

Max Theiler

received Nobel Prize for developing vaccine against Yellow Fever