On December 3, 1967, 53-year-old Louis Washkansky received
the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in
Cape Town, South Africa.

Washkansky, a South African grocer dying from chronic heart
disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-
old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. 

The new heart recipient died eighteen days later of pneumonia,
largely brought on by the anti-rejection drugs that suppressed
his immune system.

Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape    
Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical      
operation.

Christiaan Neethling Barnard (1922 – 2001)

On July 14th, 1946, at the dawn of the post-World War II baby
boom, Dr. Benjamin Spock published The Common Sense
Book of Baby and Child Care. It would become a foundational
work on the topic of parenting, transforming how generations
of children were raised.

The book, which has sold more than 50 million copies and
been translated into more than 50 languages, stands as one
of the best-selling nonfiction works of the 20th century.

The book’s premise told mothers, "You know more than you
think you do."

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998)

On July 10, 1893, trailblazing physician Daniel Hale Williams
successfully performed one of the world’s first open-heart
surgeries at Provident Hospital in Chicago. Not only is he a
pioneer of the procedure; he is one of just three African
American physicians practicing in Chicago at a time when
many white-run hospitals refused to treat Black patients—
much less hire Black doctors.

Born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania on January 18, 1856,
Williams worked as a shoemaker’s apprentice and a barber
before graduating from Chicago Medical College in 1883.

Dr. Williams opened Provident Hospital in Chicago,
Illinois, which is known to be the first Black-owned
hospital in the nation.

The German company Bayer patented aspirin on March 6,
1899. Now the most common drug in household medicine
cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a
chemical found in the bark of willow trees. In its primitive
form, the active ingredient, salicin, was used for centuries
in folk medicine, beginning in ancient Greece when
Hippocrates used it to relieve pain and fever. Known to
doctors since the mid-19th century, it was used sparingly
due to its unpleasant taste and tendency to damage the
stomach.

In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffmann (above) found a
way to create a stable form of the drug that was easier and
more pleasant to take. (Some evidence shows that Hoffmann’s
work was really done by a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun,
whose contributions were covered up during the Nazi era.)

After obtaining the patent rights, Bayer began distributing
aspirin in powder form to physicians to give to their patients
one gram at a time. The brand name came from “a” for acetyl,
“spir” from the spirea plant (a source of salicin) and the suffix
“in,” commonly used for medications. It quickly became the
number-one drug worldwide.

Sir Alexander Fleming  (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955)

Sir Alexander Fleming was a young bacteriologist when an
accidental discovery led to one of the great developments
of modern medicine on September 3, 1928. Having left a
plate of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered, Fleming noticed
that a mold that had fallen on the culture had killed many of
the bacteria. He identified the mold as penicillium notatum,
similar to the kind found on bread.

In 1929, Fleming introduced his mold by-product called
penicillin to cure bacterial infections.