The 1920s Medicine and Health: Chronology

1920:      The Menninger Clinic, which specialized in treating individuals with mental health afflictions, opens in Topeka, Kansas.

1920:      Phenobarbital is introduced as a treatment for epilepsy.

1920:      Researchers discover that cancer removes 35 percent of the oxygen from the human cells.

1921:      Carl Jung publishes Psychological Types, in which he offers his views on such innovative concepts as introverted and extroverted personality traits.

1921:      Marie Stopes opens the first family planning clinic in London.

1922:      The U.S. Federal Narcotics Control Board is established. It is empowered to ban the importation of nonmedicinal narcotics.

1922:      It is reported that more than one hundred radiologists have died from X-ray-induced cancer.

1922:      Frederick Hopkins discovers glutathione, a sequence of three amino acids that are essential for the utilization of oxygen by a cell.

1922:      Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser use an oscilloscope to study electrical impulses in a single nerve fiber.

1922:      Samuel Torrey Orton announces completion of a study in which he links emotional disturbances to neurological disorders.

1922:      The Sex Side of Life, a family planning pamphlet, is declared obscene, and cannot be mailed in the United States.

1923:      The first birth control clinic opens in New York City under the direction of Margaret Sanger.

1924:      Seale Harris discovers that sugar can cause hyperinsulinism (a condition resulting from excessive secretions of insulin in the body). He determines that diets should include decreased amounts of sugar.

1924:      Theodor Svedberg invents the ultra-centrifuge, a high-speed machine that makes it possible to isolate viruses.

1924:      Rudolph Matas introduces the use of an intravenous saline solution to prevent dehydration.

1924:      Heroin is outlawed in the United States as a prescription drug.

1924:      Acetylene, a colorless, gaseous hydrocarbon (an organic compound made up of hydrogen and carbon) is used as an anesthetic.

1924:      Faulty diphtheria vaccinations result in the deaths of forty-five people in Connecticut and New Hampshire.

1925:      James B. Collip discovers parathormone, a hormone secreted by the parathyroid gland.

1925:     February 2 A husky named Balto leads a team of sled dogs across 650 miles of snowy terrain, carrying diphtheria medicine which saves countless lives in Nome, Alaska.

1925:     June At an international arms control and trade convention in Geneva, Switzerland, nations unite to ban the use of bacteriological and chemical weapons in wartime.

1926:      Spiroptera carcinoma, a cancer caused by a parasite, is discovered.

1926:      A chemical, later identified as acetylcholine, is shown to be involved in the transmission of nerve impulses.

1926:      The General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, an international organization, is created in Germany.

1926:      E. L. Thorndike publishes The Measurement of Intelligence, in which he describes how intelligence may be numerically calculated.

1926:      James B. Sumner isolates and crystallizes urease, an enzyme.

1927:      The first tetanus shots are administered to humans in France.

1927:      The League of Nations sponsors a conference in The Hague, Netherlands, to explore the reasons behind a rash of vaccination-induced deaths in Europe.

1928:      At the Third International Conference for Eugenics, one participant calls for the sterilization of 14 million Americans with low IQs.

1928:      Research shows that prolactin, a pituitary hormone, causes the production of milk in breasts.

1929:      Alexander Fleming reports his discovery of penicillin.

1929:      Edward Doisy discovers theelin, a female sex hormone, in the urine of pregnant women.

1929:      Adolph Butenandt determines the chemical structure of estrone, a female sex hormone.

1929:      Manfred J. Sakel uses insulin shock as a treatment for schizophrenia.

1929:      Jean Piaget proposes his theory of developmental psychology, in which he explains how individuals acquire knowledge.