For our 550th anniversary year, the College has produced a short timeline video about just a few of the significant milestones in the history of medicine as a subject, at St Catharine's and at the University of Cambridge. The video takes around 5 minutes to watch and a transcript is provided below with hyperlinks for you to explore for further information.
Transcript
To celebrate the 550th anniversary of St Catharine's College and our proud history of educating exceptional doctors, we took a closer look at key milestones in the history of medicine as a subject, at St Catharine's, at the University of Cambridge.
1473: The full translation is published of 'The Canon of Medicine' by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) – considered the most famous medical textbook of all time.
Also in 1473: St Catharine's College is founded by Robert Woodlark.
1540: Henry VIII founds the Regius Professorship of Physic, the fourth oldest professorship at Cambridge.
1565: Elizabeth I permits John Caius to dissect the bodies of executed felons in London and Cambridge.
1628: William Harvey publishes ‘On the Motion of the Heart’ describing the heart as a muscle.
1654: Alumnus Dr Christopher Bennet writes a treatise on the forms of consumption, including the first illustration of an inhaler.
1682: John Francis Vigani establishes a course on ‘materia medica’ (now known as pharmacology, the science of medicines) at Queens’ College.
1697: Alumnus Dr John Addenbrooke is admitted. He goes on to be elected a Fellow of the College in 1704 and lectures on material medica.
1707: George Rolfe is elected the first professor of anatomy.
1711/12: Addenbrooke gifts to the College a chest of materia medica specimens used to teach students about the sources of medicines.
1717: Cambridge’s first anatomy school opens in what is now the garden of the Master’s Lodge at St Catharine’s.
1718: Addenbrooke leaves his books to the College and a year later £4,500 to build a “hospital for poor people” – used by St Catharine's Fellows to found Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
1728: Alumnus Dr Richard Holland FRS publishes his book on ‘Observations on the Small Pox’.
1766: Addenbrooke’s Hospital opens on Trumpington Street with twenty beds, three surgeons and three physicians.
1795: The first human blood transfusion.
1801: Edward Jenner publishes his treatise ‘On the Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation’.
1812: James Barry (born Margaret Anne Bulkley) qualifies as a doctor in Edinburgh, having lived as a man in order to study medicine.
1813: Alumnus Sir Arthur Brooke Faulkner distinguishes himself by tracing plague infections in Malta, advocating for the doctrine of contagion and directing quarantine arrangements to contain the spread.
1846: The first time a general anaesthetic is used in England.
1853–55: Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale are celebrated for their work during the Crimean War, including contributions to nursing and biostatistics.
1851: The Natural Sciences Tripos is introduced at Cambridge and provides medics with a grounding in scientific principles.
1855: England appoints its first Chief Medical Officer.
1858: The General Medical Council is founded, with Elizabeth Blackwell registered as the first female doctor in the UK one year later.
1869: The first synthetic drug, chloral hydrate, is discovered.
1914: Marie Skłodowska-Curie develops a mobile X-ray unit during WWI and trains 150 women to operate it.
1915: The Red Cross opens an auxiliary hospital on the St Chad’s site.
1918: Alumnus Sir Norman Moore becomes President of the Royal College of Physicians, after spending his entire practicing career at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.
1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
1948: The National Health Service and World Health Organization are established.
1951: Henrietta Lacks undergoes a biopsy for cancer. The cells removed (without consent) become one of the most important cell lines in medical research.
1954: First successful organ transplantation with a kidney.
1960: The first commercially available contraceptive pill is launched.
1962: The new Addenbrooke’s Hospital opens on a 66-acre site off Hills Road.
1965: Alumnus Dr Cecil Belfield Clarke is elected President of the College’s Alumni Society. He served as a GP, as well as in medical and political roles of national and international significance.
1966: The Medical Sciences Tripos is introduced at Cambridge.
1974: Alumnus Dr Peter Scott is awarded a CBE. Considered the founder of forensic psychiatry in Britain, he was dedicated to improving the welfare of young and adult offenders.
1976: The School of Clinical Medicine opens at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
1977: The World Health Organization produces its first Essential Medicines List.
1980: The World Health Assembly announces the eradication of smallpox through vaccination.
Also 1980: The first female medical student is admitted to St Catharine's.
1988: The Nobel Prize recognises the importance of rational drug design, including Gertrude Elion’s work developing the first effective HIV/AIDS drug.
1991: Alumnus Prof. Sir Michael Peckham is appointed the first Director of Research and Development for the National Health Service and Department of Health.
Also 1991: Alumnus, Fellow and surgeon Prof. John Pickard is appointed the first professor of neurosurgery at the University of Cambridge, and establishes the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre.
1993: Sir Terence English is elected Master of St Catharine’s, 14 years after performing Britain’s first successful heart transplant at Papworth Hospital.
1995: Prof. Anthony Davenport is elected to the Fellowship – the first Fellow to teach pharmacology 300 years after John Addenbrooke.
1999: The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (later the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) is established.
2006: Pickard becomes President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons.
2010: Dame Sally Davies is appointed the first female Chief Medical Officer for England.
2015: Fellow Prof. Nicholas Morrell co-founds Morphogen-IX as a result of years of research into a rare disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension.
2016: The College hosts the first John Addenbrooke lecture.
2016: Prof. Sir Mark Welland is elected Master. His research into nanotherapeutics covers a range of disease areas.
Also 2016: Pickard establishes the John Addenbrooke prizes for students with the highest marks in each year of the Medical Science Tripos.
2019: Pickard receives a CBE for services to neurosciences, neurosurgery & research for patients with complex neurological disorders.
2019: The first outbreak of coronavirus disease, which would be known as COVID-19 in the ongoing global pandemic.
2020: St Catharine’s medics respond to COVID-19, with 11 final-year students graduating early so they could seek early registration as doctors. Morell and Prof. Stefan Marciniak close their labs in the first wave to return to the wards, and Davenport pivots his research to investigate drugs to treat COVID-19. Alumna Dr Caitríona Cox supports the University’s asymptomatic testing programme, and alumnus and GP Dr Jamie Parker raises awareness of precautions through musical videos and media appearances.
Also in 2020: Davenport and Honorary Fellow Prof. Peter Barnes are elected Honorary Fellows of the British Pharmacology Society for leadership in their fields.
2021: Medical student Rhiannon Osborne is appointed Executive Committee Member of UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.
2021: Marciniak is appointed the first lead of the NHS Familial Pneumothorax Rare Disease Collaborative Network.
2022: Fellow Prof. Rahul Roychoudhuri signs a partnership with AstraZeneca to advance the treatment of lupus.
2022: Alumnus Dr Raghib Ali is awarded an OBE for services to the NHS and to the COVID-19 Response.
Also 2022: Morrell welcomes HRH The Duchess of Gloucester to the official opening of Cambridge’s Heart and Lung Research Institute.
2023: Fellow Prof. Michael Nicholson is elected President of the UK’s Surgical Research Society.
