Medicine
- April 26 - Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco, performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.
- June 5 - AIDS pandemic begins when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an unusual cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.
- Dr. Bruce Reitz performs the first successful heart–lung transplant on Mary Gohlke at Stanford Hospital.
Read more about this topic: 1981 In Science
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“After you eat always take a walk, and you’ll never have to go to a medicine shop.”
—Chinese proverb.
Rhyme.
“For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection,—for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“We gave ‘em wings to fly and they rained death on us. We gave ‘em a voice to be heard around the world and they preach hatred to poison the minds of nations. Even the medicine we gave them to ease their pain is turned into a vice to enslave half mankind for the profit of a few. Ah, Janet, dear, don’t you see? Every gift that science has given them has been twisted into a thing of hate and greed.”
—Karl Brown (1897–1990)