Revised and improved text of the Canon and other works of Avicenna by Andrea Alpago of Belluno, who had acquired a deep understanding of both the language and the subject during his thirty years of service as physician to the Venetian embassy at Damascus. Alpago supplied emendations derived from Arabic manuscripts to the earlier Latin editions of the Canon, the Cantica, and De viribus cordis (which he more accurately entitled De medicamentis cordialibus), and compiled a new glossary, mainly of Arabic names of drugs. His corrections were first published posthumously by his nephew Paolo in the Giunta edition of 1527. Digital facsimile of the 1544 Giunta edition edited by Alpago from Google Books at this link.

A handbook presenting the principles of Galenic anatomy in a form that was easily accessible to medical students. It epitomized the revolution in the teaching of anatomy, and the new emphasis on dissection, that occurred in Paris after the publication of the Greek texts of Galen's anatomical works in the Aldine edition of 1525 (See No. 27). Guinter had previously translated Galen's manual of anatomical procedures from the Greek as De anatomicis administrationibus libri novem (1531). (See No. 359). Regarding the impact of the availability of Galen's writings in Greek see Vivian Nutton, John Caius and the manuscripts of Galen, Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society,1987, and Nutton, “André Vésale et l’anatomie parisienne,” Cahiers de l’Association Internationale des Études Françaises 55 (2003) 239–249. In 1538 Vesalius issued a substantially revised version of Guinter's manual, without Guinter's permission, in a pocket (16mo) format entitled Institutionum anatomicarum secundum Galeni sententiam ad candidatos medicinae....(Venice: D. Bernardinus, 1538.) 

A compilation of 19 addresses given by Osler in various settings. These include many of Osler's most famous essays concerning the philosophical and moral foundations of medicine. Osler wrote, "we are here not to get all we can out of life for ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happier... The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of and influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish."

To the second edition of 1906 Osler added three valedictory addresses that he delivered before his departure from America to assume the Regius Professorship of Medicine at Oxford, bringing the total number of essays in the volume to 22. One of the added essays is Osler's controversial "Fixed Period" address that elicited much criticism in response to his comments on "chloroform at 60." 

Between 1932 and 1953 the Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company distributed some 150,000 copies of the third edition of this work  to graduating medical students, increasing significantly the long term impact of Osler's philosophical and moral writings.

Digital facsimile of the third impression (1914) from the Internet Archive at this link.

First English translation: Higher cortical functions in man. New York: Basic Books, 1966.

The third publication in French on dentistry, primarily plagiarized from Martinez (No. 3668.2). Martin was apothecary to Louis I, Prince of Condé, a prominent Huguenot general and founder of the House of Condé. He was born  the son of Samuel Martin (d. 1653) apothecary of Queen Marie de Medici, the second wife of King Henry IV of France, and grandson of Jean Martin, a polymath and physician to King Henry IV of France.

During his travels to Spain on a mission to collect a debt on behalf of the Prince of Condé, Martin came across Martínez's Coloquio breve y compendioso, sobre la materia de la dentadura, y maravillosa obra de la boca (1557), and decided to use material from that book without crediting it. Dissertation sur les dents consists of 14 chapters dedicated to the nature of the teeth, children's dentition, various deformities and their preservation. Martin writes about the primary dentition, the prevention of malposition, and treatment of dental trauma. Guerini points out that Martin opposed the use of the false teeth that were available at the time.

See Hagelin & Coltham, Odontologia (2015) 38. Digital facsimile from biuSanté.Paris at this link. 

Outstanding descriptions, with beautiful color illustrations, of some of the greatest classics in the history of dentistry in the library of the Svenska Tandläkare-Sällskapet (Swedish Dental Society).

Sertraline hydrochloride, an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class, developed by the authors of this paper at Pfizer, and marketed under the tradename Zoloft. With R. G. Browne.

Outstanding descriptions and superb illustrations of a very unusual collection of books, including those on fencing, gymnastics, orthopedics, physical medicine, acrobatics, and dance.

The first total joint replacements: Gluck replaced the tuberculous knee joint of a 17 year old woman with a hinged ivory prosthesis on May 20, 1890, followed by a total wrist replacement in another patient three weeks later. His joint arthroplasties were remarkably successful in the short term, but all ultimately failed because of chronic infection. "A report of five cases was published, all tuberculous joints. Three prostheses were subsequently removed, but one knee and one wrist replacement were left in situ despite fistula formation. Gluck, a rigid follower of asepsis, later realised that prior joint infection was a contraindication to joint replacement. Sadly, because of the opposition of his colleagues, Gluck stopped this work altogether...." (Eynon-Lewis, N. J.; Ferry, D.; Pearse, M. F., "Themistocles Gluck: an unreognized genius," Brit. Med. J., 305 (1992) 1535-1536.)

Improvements that Mullis made to the polymerase chain reaction in 1983 enabled PCR to become a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology. The process was first described by Kjell Kleppe and 1968 Nobel laureate H. Gobind Khorana. This was Mullis's first "methods" publication on the topic. With F. Faloona, S. Scharf, R. Saiki, G. Horn and H. Erlich. 

The first separate work on resuscitation published in the United States. A list of “Methods of Treatment to be used with Persons apparently dead from drowning, &c.” appears on p. iv; these methods included warming the body, rubbing the skin with flannel and sprinkling it with spirits, blowing tobacco smoke up the rectum and gently moving the limbs. The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (founded 1785) was the first society formed in the U.S. for resuscitating victims of drowning and other accidents such as suffocation, strangulation and lighting strikes. The reports of this society provide the earliest documentation of the history of resuscitation in America. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine at this link.

An excellent and well-documented treatise on blood transfusion, including a comprehensive history of the subject from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its revival in the nineteenth after a long period of disuse. The nineteenth century witnessed both the first human-to-human transfusion (in 1818) and the beginning of scientific research on how to make transfusion more practicable, including the development of improved transfusion technology (illustrated here in the plates and text wood-engravings) and the use of anticoagulants to prevent clotting. During this time several Continental researchers also began experimenting again with animal-to-human transfusion, which had been practiced briefly in the seventeenth century before being banned in 1670; Oré reported on 150 of these heterologous transfusions, describing the procedure as both efficacious and relatively (!) harmless. He recommended using lamb’s blood, as its red corpuscles are the same size as those in human blood. This is the greatly expanded second edition; the first edition, published in 1868, consisted of only 189pp. Digital facsimile from the HathiTrust at this link.

Comprises the entire corpus of Sanskrit medical texts, from the earliest times to the present, thus covering about two millennia.

Seminal work on renal tumors with unsurpassed descriptions of the clinical semiology of these diseases. In 1903 Albarran was the first "... to diagnose transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis by detecting malignant cells in urine aspirated from the renal pelvis. He further refined this approach by noting ureteral hemorrhage in the presence of a renal pelvic cancer when fluid injected in the renal pelvis distended it and caused it to bleed (Albarran’s sign)” (Wein AJ et al.: Campbell-Walsh Urology,1413). Digital facsimile from the HathiTrust at this link.

This 24-page pamphlet is the first work by an American devoted entirely to American birds. It deals predominantly with migratory birds, arranged according to the dates throughout the year 1791 in which they were first seen in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. Digital text available from Evans Early American Imprint Collection at this link.

When first published in 1985 this was the first monograph devoted solely to the history of Byzantine hospitals. Reissued with an extensive new introduction by the author in 1997.  

Leprosy first became known to Europeans during the 12th century when a frightening epidemic ravaged Catholic Europe. The Church responded by constructing charitable institutions called leprosariums to treat the rapidly expanding number of victims. Long before this the Byzantine Empire was forced to confront the disease. 

Aboriginal Communities of the Northern Territory of Australia. Collated and researched by Andy Barr, project manager; Joan Chapman, pharmacist; Nick Smith, botanist, Maree Beveridge, computer operator; Terry Knight, principal photographer; Valerie Alexander and Milton Andrews, botanical artists.

Securis was a Latinized version of the English surname Hatchett.

The first study to relate hair cell and neuron loss to the hearing of patients. It was the first to show that high frequency sound is "heard" at the base of the cochlea and low frequency sound at the apex. With S. J. Crowe, C. C. Bunch and L. M. Polvogt.

Wever and Bray discovered the electrical activity of the inner ear−then called the coclear microphonic−which enabled the development of the physiology of the ear.

The first work to examine the characteristics of deaf mice, which became the most important model for the study of genetic deafness. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Internet Archive at this link.

The first work on pediatric ear diseases, dedicated to the author's teacher, Adam Politzer. Alexander "was assassinated on the street between his home and the Poliklinik by Johann Sokoup, a Czechoslovakian former patient who had tried to assassinate him 22 years earlier^[4]" (Wikipedia).

The first publication on the use of air insufflation to cure some types of hearing loss.

One of the earliest accounts of the recognition of loss of hearing due to firearms and explosions during war. Foster, secretary and treasurer of the Silent Army of Deaf Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, presented 100 cases of hearing loss and associated symptoms of tinnitus and vertigo in Civil War veterans. Compensation to veterans for hearing loss did not occur until after World War iI.

"Bulmer promoted what we would call today 'central nervous system plasticity,' in describing how one sense could take over the duties of another. This is well illustrated in the frontispiece of this work, which is the first representation of bone conduction, illustrated by the person 'listening' to the cello with his teeth. The figure in the middle shows the effects of speech articulation by blowing smoke. At the bottom are four faces. 'The first head shows a man with the mouth not in the normal position but located in the middle of the nose (smell), meaning that he can taste through his nose. The second man lacks a nose, and his mouth is shifted to the area of his nasal root, meaning that he can smell through his mouth (taste). The third man is blind, however, in each auricle an eye is engraved, thus he is able to see with his ears. The man on the right has no ears, but he hears with the right eye which is shown by the engraver by an auricle replacing the eye" (Robert Ruben, Hear, Hear! Six Centuries of Otology [2002] No. 80). Reproduction of the engraved frontispiece from the Folger Shakespeare Library at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1648 edition lacking the frontispiece from Gallaudet University, Internet Archive at this link.

Very well annotated descriptions of over 100 classics in the history of otology.

Describes the first "chronically" implanted  or permanent cochlear implant. With John M. Epley of Stanford; Robert C. Lummis, Newman Guttman, Lawrence C. Frishkopf of Bell Telephone Laboratories; and Leon D. Harmon and Eberhard Zwicker of Institut für Nachrichtentechnik, Stuttgart.

This detailed psychophysical and electrophysiological analysis of one patient proved that a cochlear implant provided sufficient information to the central nervous system for the understanding of speech. 

A series of articles by Jewish physicians working in the Bersohn and Bauman Jewish Children's Hospital and "Czyste" Hospital in the Warsaw ghetto, who conducted independent research between November 1941 and August 1942 on the effects of starvation on children and adults. This starvation was an integral part of Nazi policies regarding Eastern Europe during World War II. The report, which includes photographs and testimonies, was smuggled out of the ghetto in 1943, buried in the yard of Christ Church Hospital in Warsaw and unearthed after the war. All of the authors, with the exception of the editor, Emil Apfelbaum, perished during the war. Postwar editors included David Guzik, Julius Zweibaum, Marek Koenigstein, Jonas Turkov, Josef Sack and Leon Plockier. The core of the actual research team and the authors were: Izrael Milejkowski (Forward), Józef Stein, Julian Fliederbaum (chief of the team), Anna Braude-Heller, Emil Apfelbaum (also post-war editor), Michał Szejnman, and Szymon Fajgenblat; authors of the 4 destroyed studies (never published) were Mieczysław Kocen, Mieczysław Rakszes, Moryc Płonskier, and Leon Blacher.Translated into French and issued during the same year by the same publisher as Maladie de famine: recherches cliniques sur la famine exécutées dans le ghetto de Varsovie en 1942. English translation by Myron Winick: Hunger Disease: Studies by Jewish Physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto. New York: Wiley, 1979. (My thanks to Piotr Laskowski for this information.)

Reprinted with a new introduction and bibliographical supplement by Stephen Dow Beckham, Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 1991.

Michael of Ephesus, who completed his commentaries in or after 1138, was one of the principal Aristotelian scholars in a group organized in Constantinople by the Empress Anna Komnena. His commentary was translated into Latin by Domenico Montesauro, a physician of Verona. In the present edition Michael's work is followed (pp. 201-325) by a version in Latin of book I of the original Aristotle, with facing commentary, by the Padua philosophy professor Niccolo Leonico Tomeo (1456-1531). Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

Treitz, a Czech pathologist, discovered the muscle at the duodenojejunal junction, later called “muscle of Treitz”; the fold of peritoneum over the muscle of Treitz is known as the "ligament of Treitz."

Considering that it is among the rarest of all anatomies, and certainly the largest and probably the most spectacular, it is remarkable that two nearly identical editions of Mascagni’s posthumous life-size anatomy were published almost simultaneously. The present lithographed edition was issued between 1823 and 1826 by Mascagni's literary executor and Napoleon's physician at St. Helena, Francesco Antommarchi. An edition with engraved plates was also published in Pisa under the title Anatomia universa (1823-32) (G-M 409.1).

In 1889, nearly 20 years before Horsley and Clarke published their paper on the use of stereotaxy to examine the brain, Dmitrii Zernov, a professor of anatomy at Moscow University, invented the first prototype of a stereotaxic instrument, an arc-based device for cerebral mapping that he called an encephalometer. Zernov briefly described this device in  preliminary communication published in the Russian journal Trudy Fiziko-meditsynskogo Obshestva Moscovskogo Universiteta (Vol. 2 [1889]: 70-80).

Two years later Zernov’s student Nikolai Altukhov provided a complete description of the encephalomete, including six detailed projection maps based on 40 post-mortem examinations. “Projections of anterior and posterior parts of the corpus callosum, insula and some basal ganglia (thalamus, nucleus lenticularis and caput nuclei caudate) were localized on the surface of the head. [Altukhov] also noted similarity in female and pediatric brains and concluded that the former are underdeveloped” (Lichterman, p. 3). Since both Zernov and Altukhov’s papers were published only in Russian, Western scientists did not learn of Zernov’s encephalometer until much later. Lichterman, “The first instrument for cerebral mapping: Zernov’s encephalometer and its modifications,” Kopf Carrier no. 61 (April 2005): 1-5.

McCay proved that caloric restriction increases the life span of rats, a discovery that triggered extensive further research and experiments in the field of nutrition and longevity. 

With over 2000 pages of text and 726 lithographed plates (incorporating 3604 individual figures), this work is the most comprehensive, and perhaps the most beautiful anatomical surgical atlas of the 19th century. It was published in parts over 23 years and represented the life work of Bourgery, who died before completion. Some copies were issued with the plates in black and white at half the price of the colored copies. The black and white images lack much of the visual drama of the hand-colored plates.

The artist who directed the massive program of prosection, and who was responsible for 512 of the spectacular illustrations, was Nicholas-Henri Jacob, a student of the neo-classical painter of the French Revolution, Jacques-Louis David. Bourgery considered Jacob his full collaborator in the project. The influence of the highly finished style of David is evident in the plates for this work. Before embarking on this project Jacob had gained considerable experience drawing on stone for lithographic publications. Jacob's artistic collaborators on the project were his wife, Charlotte Hublier-Jacob, Lean Baptiste Leveillé, Edmond Pochet, E. Roussin, and others. The physiologist Claude Bernard did dissections and anatomical preparations for only two of the images and a few captions. Bernard played a somewhat greater editorial role in the slightly expanded second edition published from 1866 to 1871. For both versions the precisely-detailed hand-coloring was done by an elaborate system of stencils; otherwise the time involved in the intricate hand-coloring of all the large plates might have made the edition impossible.

The first two volumes were translated into English and issued in Paris by Delaunay in 1833 and 1837. Before this English edition was terminated the publisher also issued a fragment of volume 4. Presumably only a small number of copies of the English version were issued, as relatively few have survived as compared to the original French edition.

All the plates were reproduced in color in a modern single-volume tri-lingual folio edition: Bourgery et Jacob, Atlas of human anatomy and surgery, edited by Jean Marie Le Minor and Henri Sick (Cologne: Taschen, 2005).

The first work on cardiac anatomy and pathology. Vieussens was the first to describe the course of the coronary arteries and the coronary sinus. He also described collateral vessels connecting the left anterior descending artery and the right coronary artery (circle of Vieussens), the valve Vieussens situated at the junction of the great cardiac vein and coronary sinus ostium, and a depression at the margin of the fossa ovalis called Vieussens' annulus. Vieussens provided several illustrations demonstrating the arterial andvenous coronary circulation (plates 1 to 6). He also described in detail the organization of myocardial fibers of the right and left ventricles (plates 7 to 9) Similar to Lower, Vieussens reported cases of pericardial effusion and restrictive pericarditis ("symphyse pericardique"). He presented  the clinical manifestations associated with these diseases, and described one of the first cases of aortic regurgitation. Vieussens also discussed "the structure of the internal surface of the right ventricle." He provided a detailed description of the structural and functional anatomy of the tricuspid and pulmonic valves (pp. 98-101; plates 10 & 11). Vieussens also provided the first comprehensive description of mitral stenosis (pp 101-106; plates 12 & 13). (This note was adapted from information provided by Farzan Filsoufi.) Digital facsimile from HathiTrust at this link.

Extensively annotated, magnificently printed catalogue (590pp. in 4to) entirely illustrated in color, of an exhibition of 250 early medical manuscripts, printed books, and related objects from the ancient world to the 17th century held at the Fondation Martin Bodmer in 2010. "History, science, art and symbolic representation of the world." Exhibited items came from the collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmer and 30 other institutions. With the collaboration of Vincent Barras, Charles Méla, Sylviane Messerli, Élisabeth Macheret. Préface du Professeur Charles Méla. An edition was also published in French.

Jackson, a physician, geologist and chemist in Boston, wrote this letter to Élie de Beaumont in Paris on November 13, 1846, the day after he and William T. G. Morton jointly received U.S. Patent No. 4848 for Improvement in Surgical Operations, a patent for the use of ether as an anesthetic. Inexplicably Jackson did not mail the letter until December 1. de Beaumont received the letter on December 28; however, he delayed opening the letter until the meeting of the Académie des Sciences on January 18, 1847. This  letter, when published, was Jackson's first published record of his co-discovery, with William T. G. Morton, of surgical anesthesia, in which Jackson discovered the anesthetic properties of ether while Morton first the first to apply it in surgery. Discussion of Jackson's letter by Velpeau, Serres and Roux followed in the volume of the Comptes rendus on pp. 76-79.

Even though the patent for the discovery of ether anesthesia was assigned to Jackson and Morton jointly, Morton, who desired to profit financially from ether anesthesia, politicized the discovery in his attempt to gain compensation from the U.S. government, and discredited Jackson's role. Jackson, who desired credit due rather than money, asserted his claim to share in the discovery in several publications, but in the political controversy that ensued, Morton's political skills and Jackson's seeming nearly total lack thereof, caused Jackson's claims and his reputation to become discredited. Morton's supporters became so convinced of the falseness of Jackson's claims that some later asserted that Jackson died insane, when in reality Jackson suffered a severe stroke which prevented him from writing or speaking from around 1873 onward.

The first account of the Neanderthal remains (Neanderthal 1), discovered in 1856 in the the Feldhofer cave of the Neander valley. The remains, which consist of a partial skull, pelvis and assorted long bones, were sent to Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a science teacher in Elberfeld, who immediately recognized that they were a previously unknown type of human. This conclusion was borne out by Hermann Schaaffhausen, a physician and anthropologist in Bonn to whom Fuhlrott sent a cast of the cranium. Over the winter of 1856–57 Schaaffhausen examined the Neanderthal bones in detail, and in 1857 he and Fuhlrott published preliminary announcements of the discovery in the Verhandl. des naturhis. Vereines des preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens. Fuhlrott’s account appears on page l. 

Fuhlrott’s first detailed account of the “Neanderthal 1” skeleton discovered in 1856 in the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte, located in the Düssel River gorge in southwestern Germany.

In March 1868, railway workers clearing away debris from a rock shelter known locally as the Abri de Crô-Magnon (shelter of Crô-Magnon) at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, noticed stone tools and pieces of skeleton imbedded in the dirt. In April Louis Lartet, son of paleontologist Edouard Lartet, began excavating the site, finding numerous animal remains, flint and bone artifacts, and, at the rear of the shelter, five human skeletons—the first early modern humans of the Upper Paleolithic to be discovered. This find became known as Crô-Magnon I.

English translation of this and related papers on Crô-Magnon fossils in Lartet & Christy, Reliquiae Aquitanicae; being contributions to the archaeology and palaeontology of Périgord and the adjoining provinces of southern France. Edited by Thomas Rupert Jones (1875).

First report on the Mauer jaw discovered by Schoetensack in a sandpit or quarry in the environs of Heidelberg. This was the first fossil specimen unearthed of an extinct hominin species which Schoetensack named Homo heidelbergensis.

Buckland’s elaborately illustrated Reliquiae diluvianae (Relics of the Flood) describes his geological and paleontological researches of the early 1820s, including his investigations of the Kirkdale and Paviland caves in Great Britain. His excavation of the Paviland Cave (Goat’s Hole) in Wales is notable for his discovery of a partial human skeleton covered in red ochre and accompanied by mammoth fossils and some bone and ivory ornaments. This find, which became known as the "Red Lady of Paviland," was later recognized as the first discovery of modern human fossil remains found in Europe. However, despite the proximity of the headless skeleton to the fossils of an extinct animal, Buckland identified the human remains as “anterior to, or coeval with, the Roman invasion of this country” (p. 92). This was in part due to his allegiance to catastrophist thought, as propounded by Cuvier, which held that human beings had not appeared on earth until after “geological deluge.” 

In this report on a single hominid tooth found by Swedish archeologist Birger Bohlin at the Zhoukoudian site in 1927 Black named a new genus and species of hominid, Sinanthropus pekinensis. He characterized the specimen as representing “a new genus of the family Hominidae to be named Sinanthropus. . . . The species of which the dental characters have been described in detail in the foregoing pages may be named S. pekinensis” (p. 21). This report follows Black’s brief notice in Nature (“Tertiary man in Asia: the Chou-Kou-Tien discovery,” Nature 118 [1926]: 733-734) describing two hominid teeth discovered at the Zhoukoudian site between 1921 and 1925 by archeologist Otto Zdansky.

Cann's discovery that all living humans are genetically descended from a single African mother, known as Mitochrondrial Eve, who lived <200,000 years ago, became the foundation of the Out of Africa theory, the most widely accepted explanation of the origin of all modern humans. The dating for "Eve" was a blow to the multiregional hypothesis and a boost to the theory of the origin and dispersion of modern humans from Africa. With Mark Stoneking and Allen Charles Wilson.

Lubbock introduced the terms "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". His work addressed not only the topic of human antiquity but also the lives and cultures of people in the Stone Age. In contrast to researchers who focused on the geology of the prehistoric sites or on the tools found in them, Lubbock studied the artifacts of prehistoric cultures in order to shed light on their function, as part of an overall attempt to reconstruct what stone age life might have been like. In order to gain further insight he also studied a wide variety of non-western peoples, some of whose lives and cultures appeared to him to provide strong analogues to life during the Stone Age. 

In 1863 Lartet and Christy began systematically examining the caves in the Périgord (Dordogne) region of France. This study of mobiliary or portable art, such as carved stones, carved ivory, carved bones, or carved reindeer antlers, is the founding work on Upper Paleolithic art, and one of the earliest publications to illustrate Paleolithic art. Digital facsimile of the separate offprint from Google Books at this link.

Garrod carried out her landmark excavations of the el-Wad, el-Tabun and es-Skhul caves on the hills of Mount Carmel, close to Wadi el-Mugharah (Valley of the Caves) between 1929 and 1934. Her monograph on the subject set a new standard for the prehistory of the Levant. Garrod and her team discovered both Neanderthal and early modern human remains, including the Neanderthal female skeleton known as Tabun I. Volume 1 is by Garrod and Bate; Vol. 2 by McCown and Keith.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Computed tomography of the inner ear of 20 Neanderthal specimens directed by Spoor showed that the Neanderthal semicircular canal is subtly distinct in size, shape, and orientation from that of modern humans. With Marc Braun.

This paper is a key record of the early recognition of the antiquity of man by the scientific establishment. Having returned from a visit to Abbeville, France, in May 1859, where he viewed the evidence for the antiquity of man collected by Boucher de Perthes, Prestwich delivered a convincing argument for the validity of Boucher de Perthes’ discoveries of flint implements in association with the remains of extinct animals. Prestwich also showed that the flint implements and bones from Abbeville were found in and contemporaneous with deposits laid down at an early stage in the development of the Somme Valley, and were thus of an age to be measured in tens of thousands of years. Digital facsimile from the Royal Society at this link.

Fiftieth anniversary edition with a new introduction and afterward by Chris Stringer (Oxford University Press, 2003).

Probably the largest and most comprehensive history of a medical specialty published in the 21st century. Expanded and revised English translation: Pantheon of Dermatology: outstanding historical figures by Löser, Plewig and Walter H. C. Burgdorf (Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer, 2013). The English translation was expanded to 1280 pages and 2273 illustrations (many in color).

Supplement to Fischer's work (No. 6732), with additions covering last names beginning from Aba to Kom.

First report on Homo habilis.

A comprehensive collaborative study edited by Hartwig. Includes an extensive historical bibliography.

An historical and analytical review of the literature up to 1984, with detailed bibliographies, by several outstanding authorities, edited by Smith and Spencer. Includes, pp. 411-483, Milford H. Wolpott, Wu Xin Zhi, and Alan G. Thomas, "Modern Homo sapiens Origins: A General Theory of Hominid Evolution Involving the Fossil Evidence from East Asia." This proposed the multiregional hypothesis of the origin of modern humans, a view in opposition to the prevailing recent African origin of modern humans hypothesis, or "Out of Africa" theory (OOA).  

The first paper on Sahelanthropus tchadensis, dating from between 7 and 6 million years ago in West Central Africa (northern Chad). This species had a combination of ape-like and human-like features. Ape-like elements: a small brain (even slightly smaller than a chimpanzee’s), sloping face, very prominent browridges, and elongated skull. Human-like elements: small canine teeth, a short middle part of the face, and a spinal cord opening underneath the skull instead of towards the back as seen in non-bipedal apes. The research team was directed by Brunet; more than 20 scientists co-authored the paper.

Living around 6 million years ago, in the Tugen hills region of central Kenya, this species, named Orrorin tugenensis, had small teeth with thick enamel similar to modern humans. It climbed trees, but also probably walked upright with two legs on the ground. 

Between 1992 and 1994 White and his team discovered the first Ardipithecus ramidus fossils in the Middle Awash area of Ethiopia. They named their discovery Ardipithecus ramidus (‘ramid’ means ‘root’ in the Afar language of Ethiopia and refers to the closeness of this new species to the roots of humanity, while ‘Ardi’ means ‘ground’ or ‘floor’). White devised the genus name Ardipithecus to distinguish this new genus from Australopithecus. 

The first Ardipithecus ramidus fossil found was dated to 4.4 million years BP on the basis of its stratigraphic position between two volcanic strata. 

Johanson and colleagues formally named the species Afarensis of the genus Australopithecus in 1978.

In 1965, a research team led by Bryan Patterson from Harvard University discovered a single arm bone (KNM-KP 271) of an early human at Kanapoi in northern Kenya, but without additional fossils Patterson could not confidently identify the species to which it belonged. In 1994 Meave Leakey and her team found numerous teeth and fragments of bone at the same site, which they identified as a new species. This they named Australopithecus anamensis (‘anam’ means ‘lake’ in the Turkana language). Researchers have since found other Au. anamensis fossils at nearby sites (including Allia Bay), all of which date between about 4.2 million and 3.9 million years old. With I. McDougall and A. Walker.

In 1998 and 1999, working in the Lake Turkana region of northern Kenya, Meave Leakey and her team found a cranium and other fossil remains of a 3.5 million year old hominin with a mixture of features unseen in other early human fossils. Noting the unusual combination of traits, Leakey and her team designated the hominin a new genus and species: Kenyanthropus platyops, or “flat-faced human from Kenya.” With F. Spoor, F. H. Brown, P. N. Gathogo, C. Kiarie,, L. N. Leakey, and I. McDougall. 

Matthew Berger, the young son of Lee Berger, discovered the first specimen of Australopithecus sediba, the right clavicle of MH1, on the 15th of August in 2008. This species of Australopithecus dates to about 2 million years ago. With D. J. de Ruiter, S. E. Churchill, P. Schmid, K. J. Carlson, P.H.G.M. Dirks, and J. M. Kibii.

Paranthropus robustus, discovered by Broom in Kromdraal, South Africa, in 1938. The species is generally dated from about  2 million to 1.2 million years before present.

In 1967 Arambourg and Coppens discovered  Omo 18, the first specimen of Paranthropus aethiopicus, also known as Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus; however it's classification as a new species was initially dismissed. In 1985, when Alan Walker and Richard Leakey discovered the famous "Black Skull" (KNM-WT 17000) west of Lake Turkana in Kenya, the classification reemerged. and a new "robust" australopithecine species dating to at least 2.5 million years before present in eastern Africa, became accepted.

First publication in English by Alekseyev of Homo rudolfensis, primarily known from KNM-ER 1470, discovered in Koobi Fora in the Lake Turkana basin, Kenya. Alekseyev (Alexeev) first proposed the species in 1978, initially naming it Australopithecus rudolfensis. At first the skull was incorrectly dated at nearly three million years old, predating Homo habilis. Since then, the estimate has been revised to 1.9 million years before present. 

The Turkana Boy, (KNM-WT 15000) now called Nariokotome Boy, a Homo erectus fossil which was in 2016 the most complete early human skeleton found. It is a nearly complete skeleton of a hominin youth believed to be 1.5 to 1.6 years old. The skeleton was discovered in 1984 by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey, at Nariokotome near Lake Turkana in Kenya.

Homo antecessor, an extinct human species (or subspecies) dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago, discovered in the Sierra de Atapuerca region of Northern Spain. With A. Rosas, I Martinez and M. Mosquera.

In 2003 a joint Indonesian-Australian research team led by Michael Morwood found LB-1—a nearly complete female skeleton of a tiny human that lived about 80,000 years ago—in Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. The skeleton’s unique traits such as its small body and brain size led scientists to assign the skeleton to a new species, Homo floresiensis, named after the island on which it was discovered. Nicknamed "hobbit", the individual would have stood about 3.5 feet (1.1 m) in height. With T. Sutikna, R. P. Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wayju Saptomo, and Rokus Awe Due.

Privately printed pamphlet asserting the prehistoric origin of cave paintings discovered in the cave of Altamira, Cantabria, Spain by Maria Sanz de Sautuola, daughter of the author. These were first prehistoric cave paintings discovered; initially the scientific establishment refused to accept the prehistoric origin of these paintings, and other cave paintings as they were discovered.

In 1959 Mary Leakey discovered the "Zinj" skull (OH 5) at Olduvai Gorge. This became the type specimen for Paranthropus boisei, arguably the most famous early human fossil from Olduvai in Northern Tanzania. The species lived from about 2.3 to about 1.2 million years before present.

First complete sequence of a Neanderthal genome. With more than 20 co-authors.
In 2022 Pääbo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution."  See also Nos. 7290, 14098 and 14099.

Svante Pääbo and collaborators reconstructed the genome of the Denisova hominins and announced that they were a new species, that they interbred with our species, and that the DNA results suggest that they had dark hair, eyes, and skin. From the abstract: "It represents a hitherto unknown type of hominin mtDNA that shares a common ancestor with anatomically modern human and Neanderthal mtDNAs about 1.0 million years ago. This indicates that it derives from a hominin migration out of Africa distinct from that of the ancestors of Neanderthals and of modern humans. The stratigraphy of the cave where the bone was found suggests that the Denisova hominin lived close in time and space with Neanderthals as well as with modern humans." With Q Fu, J. M. Good, B. Viola, MV Shunkov, and A. P. Derevianko.

Frere described the discovery of several flint artifacts, which he believed to be “weapons of war,” associated with “some extraordinary bones, particularly a jaw-bone of enormous size of some unknown animal” (p. 204). The flints, which included handaxes, were excavated at a brick-field in Hoxne, from a layer of gravelly soil about 12 feet beneath the surface. Frere speculated that the flints were possibly of great antiquity: “The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed; even beyond that of the present world . . . the manner in which they lie would lead to the persuasion that it was a place of their manufacture and not of their accidental deposit” (p. 205). 

Using comparative anatomy, Cuvier demonstrated that the African elephant was a separate species from the Indian elephant, and that the fossil or “mammoth” elephant was yet another species distinct from the two living varieties. This was the first scientific proof of extinct species. Cuvier first read this paper on January 21, 1796 at an ordinary meeting of the Institut National in Paris in 1796, and then again on April 4 at the first of the Institut’s quarterly public meetings. For the April 4 meeting Cuvier prepared an extract of his paper which was published in the Magasin encyclopédique (2. année 3 [1796]: 440-445). Cuvier’s full report, updated and illustrated with five plates, was first published in 1799. In his autobiography Cuvier stated that this was the paper in which he first expressed his views on extinct animals.

Christol excavated of the caverns of Pondres and Souvignarges, northeast of Montpellier in the department of Gard. These caverns, which showed no evidence of accidental disturbance, contained human remains intermixed with pottery and the remains of antediluvian mammals such as the rhinoceros, cave bear and hyena. Christol depicted seven of these human fossil bones in the plate accompanying his work; this plate probably represents the first intentionally published identified illustration of fossil human bones. Despite the obvious implications of his discovery, Christol was very much aware of Cuvier’s refutations of previous evidence for fossil man, mentioning Cuvier frequently in his text. Probably because of this, Christol shied away from drawing a definite conclusion.

Marey pioneered the use of graphical recording in the experimental sciences, using instruments (many of his own invention) to capture and display data impossible to observe with the senses alone, and to record the progression of such data over time. He began by applying graphical recording methods to problems in physiology, using machines to investigate the mechanics of the circulatory, respiratory and muscular systems. After 1868 he turned to the study of human and animal locomotion. In the second edition (1885) Marey added a 51-page supplement, Développment de la mêthode graphique par l'emploi de la photographie. Digital facsimile of the 1878 from Google Books at this link; digital facsimile of the 1885 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

For the second issue the title was changed to La méthode graphique dans les sciences expérimentales et principalement en physiologie et en médecine.

In May 1940 the Boucher de Perthes Museum in Abbeville was destroyed by bombing. However, in the years before the war Leon Aufrère made copies of archives and correspondence, which became the source material for this book on the circle of scientific amateurs associated with Boucher de Perthes. The book was published posthumously by Aufrère's daughter. 

Introduction of radiocarbon dating for dating organic materials, including fossils (maximum 50,000 to 60,000 years old). With J. R. Arnold.

Argon 40-argon 39 dating (Argon-argon dating). Astrophysicist Merrihue died in a mount-climbing accident at the age of 32.