Medical History Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 30
What Chinese medical procedure, first practiced 4,000 years ago, used needles made out of stone?
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acupuncture
Which oath was historically sworn before the goddess Panacea, whose name translates to 'cure all'?
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hippocratic oath
What vitamin deficiency disease did Scottish doctor James Lind cure among sailors by giving them citrus juice?
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scurvy
What substance did Crawford W. Long first use for surgical anesthesia?
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ether
In the U.S. in 1988, how many transplants were performed of the organ first transplanted by Christian Barnard?
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heart
What antibiotic, discovered in 1928 and first used to treat Alexander Fleming's assistant in 1929, revolutionized the field of medicine?
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penicillin
Who was the Surgeon General for most of the 1980s and helped stop the x-raying of children's feet in shoe stores in the 1950s?
Easy
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c. everett koop
What instrument did Carl Wunderlich introduce to modern medicine in the 1850s?
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thermometer
What oath was revised by the World Medical Association in 1948 in Geneva?
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hippocratic oath
Which American aviator collaborated with surgeon Alexis Carrel to invent a mechanical heart in the early 1930s?
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charles lindbergh
What organ meat did Drs. Murphy and Minot feed patients daily in 1926 to treat pernicious anemia?
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liver
What eye condition is treated with the drug physostigmine, which was synthesized by chemist Percy Julian in 1935?
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glaucoma
What clinical instrument did Thomas Albutt introduce in 1866 to register a patient's temperature more quickly than the older ones that took 20 minutes?
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thermometer
Which former Surgeon General wrote the article on smoking in the 1990 edition of The Book of Knowledge?
Medium
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c. everett koop
Who is the person that Washington D.C.'s Army Medical Center is named after?
Hard
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walter reed
Which ancient Greek physician is commonly referred to as the 'Father of Medicine' and is associated with an important oath in medical ethics?
Hard
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hippocrates
Vincent Dole introduced the therapeutic use of methadone to control addiction to which drug?
Hard
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heroin
Which doctor is the subject of the 1962 biography titled 'The Polio Man' and is known for developing the first polio vaccine?
Hard
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jonas salk
Which Greek physician, often referred to as the 'Father of Medicine', may have left the island of Cos after being blamed for a fire?
Hard
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hippocrates
Who was the army medical officer that headed a commission studying the spread of typhoid fever in 1898?
Hard
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walter reed
Which contagious disease, characterized by feverishness, was historically referred to as grippe?
Hard
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influenza
In 1907, Christmas Seals were first sold to raise funds to fight what disease?
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tuberculosis
Who published 'An Anatomical Treatise on the Motion of the Heart & Blood in Animals' in 1628?
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william harvey
In 1913, Bela Schick developed a skin test for which disease?
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diphtheria
Who introduced the term 'vaccine' in a 1798 tract on cowpox?
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edward jenner
In 1984, 12-day-old Baby Fae received the heart of what type of animal?
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baboon
Which scientist performed the first vaccination with cowpox serum on an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps on May 14, 1796?
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edward jenner
Who is the German physician after whom the islets in the pancreas are named?
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paul langerhans
What third type of blood corpuscle did William Osler describe in 1873?
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platelet
Which English physician discovered how blood circulates in the human body in the 17th century?
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william harvey
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