2600 BC – Imhotep wrote texts on ancient Egyptian medicine describing diagnosis and treatment of 200 diseases in 3rd dynasty Egypt.

2596 BC – The Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine) is published, laying the framework for traditional Chinese medicine

1500 BC – Saffron used as a medicine on the Aegean island of Thera in ancient Greece

500 BC – Bian Que becomes the earliest physician known to use acupuncture and pulse diagnosis

420 BC – Hippocrates of Cos maintains that diseases have natural causes and puts forth the Hippocratic Oath, marking the birth of medicine in the west

280 BC – Herophilus studies the nervous system and distinguishes between sensory nerves and motor nerves

250 BC – Erasistratus studies the brain and distinguishes between the cerebrum and cerebellum

200 BC – the Charaka Samhita uses a rational approach to the causes and cure of disease and uses objective methods of clinical examination

50–70 AD – Pedanius Dioscorides writes De Materia Medica – a precursor of modern pharmacopeias that was in use for almost 1600 years

180 AD – Galen studies the connection between paralysis and severance of the spinal cord

220 AD – Zhang Zhongjing publishes Shang Han Lun (On Cold Disease Damage), the oldest medical textbook in the world

270 AD – Huangfu Mi writes the Zhenjiu Jiayijing (The ABC Compendium of Acupuncture), the first textbook focusing solely on acupuncture

400 AD – the Sushruta Samhita is published, laying the framework for Ayurvedic medicine

750 AD – Kawsar Ahmed writes the Ayurvedic text Nidana where he lists diseases along with their causes, symptoms, and complications.

800–873 AD – Al-Kindi (Alkindus) introduces quantification into medicine with his De Gradibus

830–870 AD – Hunayn ibn Ishaq translates Galen's works into Arabic

838–870 AD – Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, a pioneer of pediatrics and the field of child development, writes the first encyclopedia of medicine.[1]
 

865–925 AD – Rhazes pioneers pediatrics,[2] and makes the first clear distinction between smallpox and measles in his al-Hawi.
 

1000 AD – Abulcasis establishes surgery as a profession of in his Kitab al-Tasrif, which remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European universities until the 16th century. The book described the plaster cast,[3] inhalant anesthesia, and many surgical instruments.[4]

1021 AD – Alhazen completes his Book of Optics, which made important advances in ophthalmology and eye surgery, as it correctly explained the process of visual perception.[4]

1030 AD – Avicenna writes The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, in which he establishes experimental medicine and evidence-based medicine. The Canon remains a standard textbook in Muslim and European universities until the 18th century. The book's contributions to medicine includes the introduction of clinical trials, the discovery of contagious diseases, the distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, the contagious nature of phthisis, the distribution of diseases by water and soil, and the first careful descriptions of skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions, and nervous ailments, as well the use of ice to treat fevers, and the separation of medicine from pharmacology.

1100–1161 AD – Avenzoar carries out human dissections and postmortem autopsy, and proves that the skin disease scabies is caused by a parasite, which contradicted the erroneous theory of humorism.[6] He was also the first to provide a real scientific etiology for the inflammatory diseases of the ear, and the first to clearly discuss the causes of stridor.[7] Modern anesthesia was also developed in al-Andalus by the Muslim anesthesiologists Ibn Zuhr and Abulcasis. They utilized oral as well as inhalant anesthetics, and they performed hundreds of surgeries under inhalant anesthesia with the use of narcotic-soaked sponges which were placed over the face.

1242 AD – Ibn an-Nafis suggests that the right and left ventricles of the heart are separate and discovers the pulmonary circulation (the cycle involving the ventricles of the heart and the lungs) and coronary circulation,[9] for which he is considered the pioneer of circulation theory[10] and one of the greatest physiologists of the Middle Ages.[11] He emphasized the rigours of verification by measurement, observation and experiment, and was an early proponent of experimental medicine, postmortem autopsy, and human dissection.[12] He also discredited many other erroneous Avicennian and Galenic doctrines on the four humours, pulse bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, and the anatomy of other parts of the human body.[13] Ibn al-Nafis also drew diagrams to illustrate different body parts in his new physiological system.

1248 AD – Ibn al-Baitar wrote on botany and pharmacy, studied animal anatomy and medicine, and was a pioneer of veterinary medicine.
 

1249 AD – Roger Bacon writes about convex lens spectacles for treating long-sightedness
14th century – When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms which enter the human body.[14]
 

1313–1374 AD – Ibn Khatima wrote a treatise called On the Plague, in which he establishes the existence of contagion through "experience, investigation, the evidence of the senses and trustworthy reports."[page needed] He also claims that "transmission is affected through garments, vessels and earrings."[14]
 

1403 AD – concave lens spectacles to treat myopia
early 16th century: Paracelsus, an alchemist by trade, rejects occultism and pioneers the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine

1543 AD – Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes European medicine

1546 AD – Girolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities

1553 AD – Miguel Serveto describes the circulation of blood through the lungs. He is accused of heresy and burned at the stake

1556 AD – Amato Lusitano describes venous valves in the Ázigos vein

1559 AD – Realdo Colombo describes the circulation of blood through the lungs in detail

1563 AD – Garcia de Orta founds tropical medicine with his treatise on Indian diseases and treatments

1596 AD – Li Shizhen publishes Běncǎo Gāngmù or Compendium of Materia Medica

1603 AD – Girolamo Fabrici studies leg veins and notices that they have valves which allow blood to flow only toward the heart

1628 AD – William Harvey explains the circulatory system in Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus
 

1701 AD – Giacomo Pylarini gives the first smallpox innoculations in Europe. They were widely practised in the east before then.
 

1736 AD – Claudius Aymand performs the first successful appendectomy
 

1747 AD – James Lind discovers that citrus fruits prevent scurvy
 

1774 AD – Joseph Priestley discovers nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, ammonia, hydrogen chloride and oxygen
 

1785 AD – William Withering publishes "An Account of the Foxglove" the first systematic description of digitalis in treating dropsy
 

1790 AD – Samuel Hahnemann rages against the prevalent practice of bloodletting as a universal cure and founds homeopathy
 

1796 AD – Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination method
 

1799 AD – Humphry Davy discovers the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide
 

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