Early Modern England: Medicine, Shakespeare, and Books


Medical History Timeline

460 BC: Hippocrates born

130 AD: Galen born

900 AD: Persians translate Greek classics into Latin

1494: First recorded outbreak of syphilis

1500: First systematic dissections

1536: Pare’s treatment of wounds; boiling oil, dressings

1540: Rosslin’s training for midwives

1542: Fuchs publishes the herbal De Historia Stirpium

1555: Second edition of Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis

1628: Harvey discovers blood circulation

1661: Malpighi’s discovery of the microscope

1665: First successful blood transfusion


Shakespeare & European History Timeline

1450: Johannes Gutenberg invents movable type printing press; prints Gutenberg Bible

1492: Columbus sails to North America

1493: Nuremberg Chronicle published

1506: Leonardo Da Vinci completes the Mona Lisa

1509: Henry VIII crowned king of England

1517: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses; Reformation movement begins

1558: Elizabeth I crowned queen of England

1564: William Shakespeare born

1567: James I crowned king of England

1603: Hamlet first published

1607: Jamestown colony founded

1611: King James Bible published

1616: Shakespeare dies

1623: Shakespeare’s first folio published

1633: Galileo Galilei arrested for heresy

1665: Great plague of London

1666: Great fire of London


©2017 John Martin Rare Book Room, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, 600 Newton Road, Iowa City, IA 52242-1098
Image: Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia (detail), 1851-52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm, Tate Gallery, London.