This is a list of famous physicians in history: [edit] Physicians famous for their role in advancement of medicine - William Osler Abbott (1902–1943) — co-developed the Miller-Abbott tube
- Mason Andrews (1919-2006) — delivered America's first in vitro baby; president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society
- Virginia Apgar (1909–1974) — anesthesiologist who devised the Apgar score used after childbirth
- Hans Asperger (1906–1980) — Austrian paediatrician after whom Asperger syndrome is named
- William Stewart Agras — feeding behavior
- Jean Astruc (1684–1766) — wrote one of the first treatises on syphilis
- Averroës (1126–1198)
- Avicenna (980–1037) — Persian physician
- Frederick Banting (1891–1941) — isolated insulin
- Christiaan Barnard (1922–2001) — performed first heart transplant
- Charles Best (1899–1978) — assisted in the discovery of insulin
- Norman Bethune (1890–1939) — developer of battlefield surgical techniques
- Theodor Billroth (1829–1894) — father of modern abdominal surgery
- Alfred Blalock (1899–1964) — most noted for his research on the medical condition of shock and the development of the Blalock-Taussig Shunt, surgical relief of the cyanosis from Tetralogy of Fallot—known commonly as the blue baby syndrome—with his assistant Vivien Thomas and pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig
- Charaka — Indian physician
- Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) — pioneering neurologist
- Guy de Chauliac (1290-1368) — one of the first physicians to have an experimental approach towards medicine; also recorded the Black Death
- Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) - American neurosurgeon and the father of modern day brain surgery.
- Charles R. Drew (1904–1950) — blood transfusion pioneer
- Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) — important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine.
- Galen (129 – c. 210) — Roman physician and anatomist
- Garcia de Orta (1501–1568) — revealed herbal medicines of India, described Cholera
- Christiaan Eijkman (1858–1930) — pathologist, studied beriberi
- Pierre Fauchard — father of dentistry
- Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553) — wrote on syphilis, forerunner of germ theory
- Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) — founder of psychoanalysis
- Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (born 1923) — studied Kuru, Nobel prize winner
- Henry Gray (1827-1861) — English anatomist and surgeon, creator of Gray's Anatomy
- William Harvey (1578–1657) — English physician, described the circulatory system
- Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) — physician and anatomist
- Henry Heimlich (born 1920) — inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver and the Vietnam War era Chest Drain Valve
- Orvan Hess (1906–2002) — fetal heart monitor and first successful use of penicillin
- John Hunter (1728-1793) — Father of modern surgery, famous for his study of Anatomy
- Hippocrates (c. 460–370 BCE) — Greek father of medicine
- Elliott P. Joslin (1869-1962) — pioneer in the treatment of diabetes
- Edward Jenner (1749–1823) — English physician popularized vaccination
- Carl Jung (1875–1961) — Swiss psychiatrist
- Leo Kanner (1894–1981) — Austrian-American psychiatrist known for work on autism
- Seymour Kety (1915–2000) — influential American neuroscientist
- Robert Koch (1843–1910) — formulated Koch's postulates
- Theodor Kocher — thyroid surgery and first surgeon to win the Nobel Prize
- Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781–1826) — inventor of the stethoscope
- Janet Lane-Claypon (1877–1967) — pioneer of epidemiology
- Joseph Lister (1827–1912) — pioneer of antiseptic surgery
- Richard Lower (1631–1691) — studied the lungs and heart, and performed the first blood transfusion
- Paul Loye (1861–1890) — studied the nervous system and decapitation
- Amato Lusitano (1511–1568) — discovered venous valves, studied blood circulation
- Madhav (8th century A.D.) — medical text author and systematizer
- Maimonides (1135–1204)
- Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) — Italian anatomist, pioneer in histology
- Otto Fritz Meyerhof (1884–1951) — studied muscle metabolism (Nobel prize)
- George Richards Minot (1885–1950) — Nobel prize for his study of anemia
- Charles Horace Mayo (1865–1939) — co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- William James Mayo (1861–1939) — co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- William Worrall Mayo (1819–1911) — co-founder, Mayo Clinic
- Frederic E. Mohs (1910-2002) — responsible for the method of surgery now called Mohs surgery
- Richard Morton (1637–1698) — identified tubercles in consumption (phthisis) of lungs; basis for modern name tuberculosis
- Egas Moniz (1874–1955) — developed Lobotomy and brain artery angiography.
- William McBride — discovered teratogenicity of thalidomide
- Herbert Needleman — scientifically established link between lead poisoning and neurological damage; key figure in successful efforts to limit lead exposure
- Charles Jean Henri Nicolle (1866–1936) — microbiologist who won Nobel prize for work on typhus
- Gary Onik — inventor and pioneer of ultrasound guided cryosurgery for both the prostate and the liver
- William Osler (1849–1919) — called the "father of modern medicine"
- Ralph Paffenbarger — conducted classic studies demonstrating conclusively that active people reduce their risk of heart disease and live longer
- Paracelsus (1493–1541)
- Ambroise Paré (1510–1590) — advanced surgical wound treatment
- Wilder Penfield (1891–1976) — pioneer in neurology
- Joseph Ransohoff (1915–2001) — neurosurgeon who invented the modern technique for removing brain tumors
- Sir William Refshauge (1913-2009) — renowned Australian public health administrator
- Rhazes (c. 854 – 925) (Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi)
- Jonas Salk (1914–1995) — developed a vaccine for polio
- Lall Sawh (born 1951) — Trinidadian surgeon/urologist and pioneer of kidney transplantation in the Caribbean
- Ignaz Semmelweis (1818–1865) — a pioneer of avoiding cross-infection — introduced hand washing and instrument cleaning
- John Snow (1813–1858) — anaesthetist and pioneer epidemiologist who studied cholera
- Andrew Taylor Still(1828-1917) — father of osteopathic medicine
- Susruta (c. 500 BCE) — Indian physician and pioneering surgeon
- Thomas Sydenham (1642–1689) — clinician
- James Mourilyan Tanner (born 1920) — developed Tanner stages and advanced auxology
- Helen B. Taussig (1898–1986) — founded field of pediatric cardiology, worked to prevent thalidomide marketing in the US
- Carlo Urbani (1956–2003) — discovered, and died from, SARS
- Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) — Belgian anatomist, often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy
- Vidus Vidius (1508–1569) — first professor of medicine at the College Royal and author of medical texts
- Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) — German pathologist, founder of fields of comparative pathology, cellular pathology
- Allen Oldfather Whipple (1881–1963) — devised the Whipple procedure in 1935 for treatment of pancreatic cancer
- Priscilla White — developed classification of diabetes mellitus and pregnancy to assess and reduce the risk of miscarriage, birth defect, stillbirth, and maternal death
- Carl Wood — in vitro fertilization
- Ole Wormius (1588–1654) — pioneer in embryology
- Sir Magdi Yacoub (born 1935) — one of the leading developers of the techniques of heart and heart-lung transplantation
- Boris Yegorov (1937–1994) — first physician in space (1964)
[edit] Physicians famous chiefly as eponyms See also Medical eponyms Among the better known eponyms: [edit] Physicians famous as criminals [edit] Physicians famous as writers see also A Roster of Physician Writers Among the better known writers: - Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) - Russian novelist and playwright
- Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) - Russian playwright
- Khaled Hosseini (1965-) - American author, originally from Afghanistan, of hugely popular bestselling novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Robin Cook - American author of bestselling novels, wrote Coma
- Michael Crichton (1942–2008) - American author of Jurassic Park
- A. J. Cronin (1896–1981) - Scottish novelist and essayist, author of The Citadel
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) - British author of Sherlock Holmes fame
- Anthony Daniels (1949– ) - As 'Theodore Dalrymple' and under his own name, a British author, critic and social and cultural commentator
- John Keats (1795–1821) - English poet
- W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) - British novelist and short story writer, wrote Of Human Bondage
- Alfred de Musset (1810–1857) - French playwright, discovered sign of syphilitic aortitis
- François Rabelais (1483–1553) - French author of Gargantua and Pantagruel
- Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), German writer, poet, essayist and dramatist
- William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) - American poet and essayist
- Walker Percy (1916-1990)- American philosopher and writer
And others: - John Arbuthnot - author
- Patrick Abercromby (1656 – c. 1716) - historian
- Chris Adrian author
- Jacob Appel - short story writer
- Janet Asimov - (born 1926) (née Janet O. Jeppson). American psychiatrist, wife of Isaac Asimov.
- Arnie Baker - cycling coach
- Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) - British writer
- Georg Büchner - German dramatist
- Ludwig Büchner - German philosopher
- Thomas Campion - poet, composer
- Ethan Canin - novelist, short story writer
- Deepak Chopra - Indian/American writer of self-help and health books
- Alex Comfort (1920–2000) - British writer and poet, author of The Joy of Sex.
- Michael Cook - American writer of suspense novels
- Ctesias (5th century B.C.) - Greek historian
- Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802). British poet, grandfather of Charles Darwin
- Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) - French writer, dramatist, poet and humanist
- Havelock Ellis (1859–1940) - British writer and poet, author of The Psychology of Sex
- Victor Frankl (1905–1997) - Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, author of Man's Search for Meaning
- Samuel Garth (1661–1719) - British author and translator of classics
- William Gilbert
- Oliver Goldsmith - British author
- Atul Gawande, surgeon and New Yorker medical writer.
- H. Richard Hornberger author of M*A*S*H
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894) - American essayist
- Arthur Johnston (1587–1641) - poet
- Dimitris P. Kraniotis - Greek poet
- R. D. Laing - Scottish writer and poet, leader of the anti-psychiatry movement.
- Stanisław Lem (1929-2006) - Polish author of science-fiction (Solaris)
- Carlo Levi (1902–1975) - Italian novelist and writer
- David Livingstone (1813–1873) - Scottish medical missionary, explorer of Africa, travel writer
- Adeline Yen Mah - Chinese-American author.
- Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) - French writer, a leader of French Revolution, assassinated in bathtub
- Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910) - Italian writer, wrote a science fiction book, L'Anno 3000
- Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) - American writer
- Mungo Park
- João Guimarães Rosa - Brazilian writer
- Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) - British writer and poet, discovered the malarial parasite.
- Theodore Isaac Rubin (born 1923). American author of Lisa and David.
- Oliver Sacks (born 1933). British essayist (e.g. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat)
- Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) - German charitative worker, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1952), theologian, philosopher, organist, musicologist
- Frank Slaughter (1908–2001) American bestseller author, wrote (Doctor's Wives)
- Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) - author
- Benjamin Spock (1903–1988) - American pediatrician, wrote Baby and Child Care.
- Osamu Tezuka - Japanese Cartoonist and Animator. Considered the "father of anime".
- Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) - American essayist and poet
- Sir Henry Thompson, British surgeon and polymath.
- Vladislav Vančura (1891–1942) - Czech writer, screenwriter and film director
- Francis Brett Young (1884–1954) - English novelist and poet
[edit] Physicians famous as politicians - Bashar Al-Assad - President of Syria
- Ibrahim Al-Jaafari - Prime minister of Iraq
- Iyad Allawi - interim Prime Minister of Iraq
- Salvador Allende (1908–1973) - Chilean president
- Emilio Alvarez Montalván - Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
- Arnulfo Arias - Panaman President
- Michelle Bachelet - Current Chilean President
- Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1898–1997) - Prime Minister, President and later dictator of Malawi
- Louis Blanqui - French revolutionary socialist
- Frederick William Borden - Canadian MP and minister of the Militia
- Bob Brown - parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens
- Gro Harlem Brundtland (born 1939) - first Norwegian female prime minister and Director-General of the World Health Organization
- Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) - French statesman
- Margaret Chan - Director General of the WHO and former Director of Health of Hong Kong
- Chen Chi-mai - former mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
- York Chow - Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food of Hong Kong
- Tom Coburn (born 1948) - U.S. Senator
- Howard Dean (born 1948) - American politician
- François Duvalier (1907–1971) - also known as Papa Doc - President and later dictator of Haiti
- Antônio Palocci Filho - Brazilian politician, Finance Minister
- Christian Friedrich, Baron von Stockmar - Anglo-Belgian statesman
- Bill Frist (born 1952) - United States Senate Majority Leader
- Hedy Fry (born 1941) - Canadian politician, member of parliament
- Che Guevara Latin American revolutionary leader
- George Habash - founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- John Pope Hennessy - former Governor of Hong Kong
- Grant Hill - former Canadian MP
- Wilbert Keon - Canadian senator
- Mohammad Reza Khatami - Iranian politician
- Juscelino Kubitscheck - Brazilian president
- Jean-Paul Marat - French revolution leader
- Keith Martin - Portuguese Canadian MP
- Jim McDermott - U.S. Congressman
- William McGuigan - mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia
- Mahathir bin Mohamad - Malaysian prime minister
- Brendon Nelson - Australian politician
- Agostinho Neto (1922–1979) - MPLA leader and president of Angola
- David Owen - British politician
- Ron Paul (born 1935) - American politician
- Andrew Refshauge - Australian politician
- Navin Ramgoolam - Prime minister of Mauritius
- Maxime Ferrari - Minister for Development Seychelles
- José Rizal (1861–1896) - Filipino revolutionary and national hero
- Théodore Robitaille - Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Quebec MNA and Senator
- Bidhan Chandra Roy - Indian politician
- Hélio de Oliveira Santos - Brazilian politician, mayor of Campinas
- Tabaré Vázquez - Current Uruguayan President
- Bette Stephenson - Ontario MPP and former Minister of Labour, Minister of Education and Minister of Colleges and Universities
- Sun Yat-Sen (1866–1925) - Founder of republican China
- Donald Matheson Sutherland - MP and former minister of National Defence
- Sir Charles Tupper (1821–1915) - Prime Minister of Canada (1896) and Premier of Nova Scotia (1864–1867); High Commissioner in Great Britain (1884-1887)
- Ali Akbar Velayati (born 1945) - Iranian Foreign Minister from 1981 to 1997.
- William Walker (1824–1860) - ruler of Nicaragua
- Dave Weldon - US congressman and autism activist
- Ray Lyman Wilbur (1875–1949) - United States Secretary of the Interior, president of Stanford University
- Thomas Wynne (1627–1691) - Physician to William Penn, speaker of the first two Provincial Assemblies in Philadelphia (1687 & 1688)
- Yeoh Eng-kiong - former Secretary for Health and Welfare of Hong Kong
- Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy (1948-2009)-Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh State, India(2004).
- Jayaprakash Narayan Adusumilli - Indian Politician, Founder of Loksatta Party
[edit] Physicians famous for other activities - Abd-el-latif — traveller
- Anderson Ruffin Abbott
- Keith Ablow — television psychiatrist
- Jane Addams — social activist
- Georg Agricola — mineralologist
- David Alter — inventor
- Oswald Avery (1877–1955) — molecular biologist who discovered DNA carried genetic information
- Ali Bacher — cricketer
- Josiah Bartlett — American statesman and chief justice of New Hampshire
- T. Romeyn Beck (1791–1855) — American forensic medicine pioneer
- Maximilian Bircher-Benner (1867–1939) — nutritionist
- Herman Boerhaave — humanist
- Alexander Borodin — composer
- Thomas Bowdler — censor
- Lafayette Bunnell — explorer of Yosemite Valley
- Roberto Canessa — survivor of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972.
- Gerolamo Cardano
- Ben Carson — Prominent African American Neurosurgeon
- John Caius (1510–1573) — physician and educator
- Graham Chapman — British comedian of Monty Python fame
- Laurel B. Clark (1961–2003) — American Astronaut, killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
- Arthur Dee
- Sextus Empiricus (2nd–3rd century C.E.) — philosopher
- Gordon S. Fahrni (1887-1995) — Order of Canada and President of the Canadian Medical Association from 1941-1942
- Niels Ryberg Finsen
- Luigi Galvani — physicist
- Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) — philosopher
- William Gilbert (1544–1603) — physician and physicist
- Carl Goresky — physician and scientist
- W. G. Grace — cricketer
- John Franklin Gray (1804 – 1881) was an American educator and physician and the first practitioner of homoeopathy in the United States.
- Nehemiah Grew — botanist
- Samuel Hahnemann — founder of homeopathy
- John Hall (died 1635) — son-in-law of William Shakespeare
- Armand Hammer — entrepreneur
- Harry Hill — comedian
- Samuel Gridley Howe — abolitionist
- Hermann von Helmholtz — physicist
- Jan Baptist van Helmont (1577–1655) — physiologist
- Mae Jemison (born 1956) — astronaut
- Stuart Kauffman (born 1939) — biologist
- John Harvey Kellogg
- Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) — based his system of criminology on physiognomy
- John Lovelock (1910–1949) — Olympic athlete
- John McAndrew (born 1927) — All-Ireland Gaelic Footballer
- June McCarroll — inventor of lane markings
- James McHenry (1753–1816) — signer of the United States Constitution
- Archibald Menzies — naturalist
- Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) — proponent of mesmerism and the idea of animal magnetism
- Jonathan Miller — television presenter and stage director
- Paul Möhring (1710–1792) — zoologist, botanist
- Maria Montessori — educator
- Boris V. Morukov — cosmonaut
- Lee "Final Table" Nelson — professional poker player
- Haing S. Ngor — Oscar winning film actor
- Noor-ud-Din (1841-1914) Khalifatul Masih I, Head of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community; royal physician, writer and theologian
- Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (1758–1840) — astronomer
- Caspar Peucer
- Christian Hendrik Persoon — South African botanist
- Claude Perrault — architect
- Philippe Pinel
- Weston A. Price — traveler, educator
- Pope John XXI
- John Ray — plant taxonomer
- Bradbury Robinson — threw the first legal forward pass in American football history while a medical student at St. Louis University
- Peter Mark Roget — English lexicographer
- Jacques Rogge — sports official
- Doreen Rosenstrauch — artist, athlete, humanist, scientist
- Mowaffak al-Rubaie — human rights advocate, member of the Interim Iraqi Governing Council
- Benjamin Rush — signer of the United States Constitution
- Daniel Rutherford (1749–1819) — chemist
- Felix Savart — physicist
- Albert Schweitzer — humanist
- Michael Servetus (1511–1553) — burnt at the stake by Calvinists for heresy
- Rob Sitch — comedian
- Sócrates (born 1954, Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira) — Brazilian football (soccer) player
- James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) — British missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission
- Norman Earl Thagard — astronaut
- Debi Thomas (born 1967) — Olympic figure skater
- William E. Thornton — astronaut
- Nasiruddin al-Tusi — astronomer
- William Walker — Latin American adventurer
- Andrew Wakefield — conducted studies on disputed link between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, which had many serious consequences
- John Clarence Webster — Canadian historian
- Wilhelm Weinberg — with G.H. Hardy, developed the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium model of population genetics
- Michael Welner — Forensic psychiatrist
- JPR Williams — rugby union player
- Thomas Young — scientist
- Ayman al-Zawahiri — Al-Qaeda leader
[edit] See also | Psychiatry | | | Subspecialties | |  | | | Societies | | | | Related topics | | | | Lists | | | |
