History of medical technology
123 inventions by year: what each evolved from and what it led to.
| Year | Invention | What it is | Evolved from | Led to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3000 BC | Catheter Michele Troja | A tube inserted into a body cavity. | ||
| 3000 BC | Scalpel | A surgical knife. | Knife | |
| 3000 BC | Surgical suture | Stitching tissue with thread. | Surgical stapler | |
| 2800 BC | Crutches | Supports for walking. | Wheelchair | |
| 1500 BC | Bandage | Dressing material. | Sticking plaster | |
| 1000 BC | Stretcher | A means of carrying the wounded. | ||
| 950 BC | Prosthetic limb | An artificial replacement for a limb; modern ones are bionic. | ||
| 700 BC | Dentures | Removable artificial teeth. | ||
| 100 BC | Surgical forceps | Tongs for grasping tissue. | Haemostat | |
| 1286 | Glasses | Lenses for correcting vision (Italy). | Magnifying glass | Sunglasses, Contact lens, Telescope, Microscope |
| 1286 | Spectacle frame | A holder for lenses. | ||
| 1655 | Wheelchair | A chair on wheels; the self-propelled one — Farffler. | Crutches | |
| 1718 | Tourniquet | A means of stopping bleeding (Petit; Esmarch’s tourniquet). | ||
| 1796 | Vaccine Edward Jenner | Preventing a disease with a weakened pathogen (Jenner). | ||
| 1796 | Smallpox vaccine Edward Jenner | Vaccination with cowpox (Jenner). | ||
| 1806 | Endoscope | Viewing internal organs; the flexible fibre-optic one dates from 1957. | ||
| 1816 | Stethoscope René Laenne | An instrument for listening to the heart and lungs (Laennec). | ||
| 1818 | Blood transfusion | The first successful one — Blundell; blood groups — Landsteiner, 1901. | ||
| 1819 | Dental filling | Amalgam, then composites. | ||
| 1831 | IV drip | Intravenous infusion of solutions (Latta). | ||
| 1834 | Capsule | A gelatin capsule (Mothes). | ||
| 1838 | Otoscope | An instrument for examining the ear. | ||
| 1843 | Tablet (medicine) | A pressed dosage form (Brockedon). | ||
| 1846 | General anaesthesia | Ether anaesthesia for surgery (Morton; Pirogov). | ||
| 1851 | Ophthalmoscope Hermann von Helmholtz | An instrument for examining the back of the eye (Helmholtz). | ||
| 1852 | Plaster cast Antonius Mathijsen | Immobilizing fractures with plaster (Mathijsen, Pirogov). | ||
| 1853 | Syringe | An instrument for injections (Wood, Pravaz). | ||
| 1858 | Nebulizer | A medication sprayer. | ||
| 1861 | Germ theory of disease Germ theory's key 19th century figures, Louis Pasteur | Diseases are caused by microorganisms (Pasteur, Koch). | ||
| 1867 | Clinical thermometer | Allbutt’s thermometer for measuring body temperature. | Digital thermometer | |
| 1867 | Antisepsis | Disinfecting wounds and instruments (Lister). | Sterilization | |
| 1871 | Dental drill | A dentist’s drill (Morrison; the turbine drill in 1957). | ||
| 1879 | Autoclave Charles Chamberland | Sterilizing with steam under pressure (Chamberland). | ||
| 1880 | Haemostat | A clamp for blood vessels (Kocher, Péan). | Surgical forceps | |
| 1880 | Infant incubator | An incubator for premature babies (Tarnier). | Incubator | |
| 1880 | Sterilization | Killing microorganisms on instruments. | Antisepsis | |
| 1882 | Culture medium (agar) | Agar for growing bacteria (Hesse, Koch). | ||
| 1884 | Gram staining Hans Christian Gram | A method for telling bacteria apart. | ||
| 1884 | Local anaesthesia | Cocaine (Koller), then novocaine (1905). | ||
| 1885 | Rabies vaccine | Pasteur’s vaccine. | ||
| 1888 | Reflex hammer | A small hammer for testing reflexes. | ||
| 1888 | First aid kit | A first aid set (Johnson & Johnson). | ||
| 1890 | Antibodies | Proteins of the immune system (Behring, Ehrlich). | ||
| 1890 | Surgical gloves | Rubber gloves (Halsted). | ||
| 1896 | X-ray machine | Images of internal organs. | CT scanner | |
| 1896 | Blood pressure monitor | Measuring blood pressure (Riva-Rocci; Korotkov’s method). | Manometer | Digital blood pressure monitor |
| 1896 | Dental X-ray | Images of the teeth. | ||
| 1896 | Radiation therapy | Treating tumours with radiation. | ||
| 1897 | Surgical mask | A surgeon’s mask (Mikulicz). | Respirator | |
| 1897 | Aspirin Raffaele Piria, Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe | Acetylsalicylic acid (Hoffmann, Bayer). | ||
| 1898 | Hearing aid | An electronic sound amplifier for people with hearing loss. | Telephone | |
| 1899 | Ambulance | A vehicle for transporting patients. | Truck | |
| 1901 | Blood groups Karl Landsteiner | The ABO system (Landsteiner). | ||
| 1903 | Electrocardiograph | Recording the electrical activity of the heart (Einthoven). | Galvanometer | Holter monitor |
| 1908 | Surgical stapler | A device for joining tissue with staples (Hültl). | Surgical suture | |
| 1908 | Water chlorination | Disinfecting drinking water with chlorine. | ||
| 1909 | Hospital bed | An adjustable bed (Gatch). | ||
| 1910 | Respirator | A filtering mask (the anti-plague mask — Wu Lien-teh). | Surgical mask | Gas mask |
| 1910 | Laparoscopy | Operating through small punctures with a camera. | ||
| 1917 | Anaesthetic machine Otto Roth, Heinrich Dräger | Boyle’s machine for delivering gases. | ||
| 1917 | Air ambulance | Evacuating patients by aeroplane and helicopter. | ||
| 1920 | Sticking plaster | A plaster with a gauze pad (Band-Aid, Dickson). | Bandage | |
| 1921 | Operating microscope | A microscope for microsurgery. | ||
| 1922 | Insulin | A hormone for treating diabetes (Banting, Best). | ||
| 1922 | Audiometer | An instrument for testing hearing. | ||
| 1924 | Electroencephalograph | Recording the electrical activity of the brain (Berger). | ||
| 1928 | Ventilator | Mechanical ventilation of the lungs (the “iron lung”). | ||
| 1928 | Antibiotic | Fleming’s penicillin and the drugs that followed. | ||
| 1928 | Penicillin Alexander Fleming | The first antibiotic (Fleming; production — Florey, Chain). | ||
| 1935 | Sulfonamides | The first synthetic antibacterial drugs (Domagk). | Synthetic dye | |
| 1937 | Blood bank Charles Drew | Storing donor blood with an anticoagulant. | ||
| 1943 | Haemodialysis machine Willem Johan Kolff | An artificial kidney (Kolff). | ||
| 1943 | Streptomycin Albert Schatz | An antibiotic against tuberculosis (Waksman, Schatz). | ||
| 1947 | Defibrillator | An electric shock to restore the heart’s rhythm. | Implantable defibrillator | |
| 1949 | Contact lens | A lens worn on the cornea. | Glasses | |
| 1949 | Lens replacement | An artificial intraocular lens (Ridley). | ||
| 1950 | Cold chain | Keeping vaccines at low temperature. | ||
| 1950 | Electromyography | Recording the electrical signals of muscles. | ||
| 1953 | Medical linear accelerator | A linear accelerator for radiation therapy. | ||
| 1953 | Heart–lung machine | Takes over the heart and lungs during surgery (Gibbon; Bryukhonenko). | Artificial heart | |
| 1954 | Organ transplantation | A kidney transplant (Murray). | ||
| 1955 | Polio vaccine Jonas Salk | Salk; the live vaccine — Sabin, Chumakov. | ||
| 1956 | Inhaler | A metered-dose aerosol (Riker). | ||
| 1956 | Ultrasound scanner | Imaging organs by reflected ultrasound. | ||
| 1957 | Gamma camera | Scintigraphy of radioactive tracers (Anger). | ||
| 1958 | Pacemaker | An implanted pulse generator for the heart. | Implantable defibrillator | |
| 1960 | Artificial heart valve | A mechanical valve (Starr–Edwards). | ||
| 1960 | Cardiopulmonary resuscitation | Chest compressions and rescue breathing (Kouwenhoven, Safar). | ||
| 1960 | Telemedicine | Medical care at a distance. | ||
| 1962 | Holter monitor Norman Holter | Recording an ECG over 24 hours (Holter). | Electrocardiograph | |
| 1962 | Joint replacement | An artificial hip joint (Charnley). | ||
| 1963 | Laser surgery | Operations with a laser beam (vision correction). | ||
| 1966 | Mammograph | X-ray imaging of the breast. | ||
| 1968 | Gamma Knife | Radiosurgery with beams of gamma rays (Leksell). | ||
| 1970 | Glucose meter | Measuring blood sugar. | Continuous glucose monitoring | |
| 1970 | Digital thermometer | A thermometer with a thermistor. | Clinical thermometer | |
| 1970 | Oxygen concentrator | A device that extracts oxygen from the air. | ||
| 1971 | CT scanner | Slice-by-slice X-ray images assembled by a computer (Hounsfield). | X-ray machine | |
| 1973 | Recombinant DNA | Genetic engineering (Cohen, Boyer). | CRISPR | |
| 1974 | Pulse oximeter | Measures blood oxygen saturation with light (Aoyagi). | ||
| 1975 | PET scanner | Positron emission tomography. | ||
| 1976 | Insulin pump | A wearable insulin dispenser. | ||
| 1977 | DNA sequencing | Reading the sequence of DNA (Sanger). | ||
| 1977 | Pregnancy test | An immunochromatographic strip. | Rapid test | |
| 1977 | MRI | Imaging based on nuclear magnetic resonance. | ||
| 1977 | Angioplasty | Widening a vessel with a balloon (Grüntzig). | ||
| 1978 | Cochlear implant William F. House | Electrodes stimulate the auditory nerve. | ||
| 1980 | Implantable defibrillator | A cardioverter under the skin (Mirowski). | Defibrillator, Pacemaker | |
| 1980 | Lithotripsy | Breaking up stones with shock waves. | ||
| 1981 | Digital blood pressure monitor | An automatic oscillometric monitor. | Blood pressure monitor | |
| 1982 | Artificial heart | A mechanical pump instead of the heart (Jarvik-7). | Heart–lung machine | |
| 1983 | PCR | The polymerase chain reaction — copying DNA (Mullis). | ||
| 1986 | Stent | A mesh frame that widens a blood vessel. | ||
| 1988 | Rapid test | An antigen strip — the same principle as a pregnancy test. | Pregnancy test | |
| 1998 | Brain–computer interface | Controlling devices with brain signals. | ||
| 1999 | Continuous glucose monitoring | A wearable sugar sensor. | Glucose meter | |
| 2000 | Surgical robot | A robotic manipulator for operations (da Vinci). | Industrial robot | |
| 2003 | Human Genome Project | Reading the human genome. | ||
| 2007 | Bionic hand | A prosthesis with myoelectric control. | ||
| 2009 | Fitness tracker | A wearable activity and heart-rate sensor. | Smartwatch | |
| 2011 | Exoskeleton | A wearable robot for walking (ReWalk). | ||
| 2012 | CRISPR | Genome editing (Doudna, Charpentier). | Recombinant DNA | |
| 2020 | mRNA vaccine Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman | A vaccine that delivers instructions for making an antigen. |