Now on Facebook: 200 years of highlights in Yale medical history

Do you know the story behind the first use of cancer chemotherapy, or about the events surrounding the isolation of the deadly Lassa virus in 1969?

Scientists at Yale School of Medicine contributed to these advances and numerous others over the last 200 years — and now, thanks to Facebook’s new Timeline feature, you can learn about Yale’s medical history with the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger.

The staff of the School of Medicine’s Office of Institutional Planning & Communications has taken advantage of the Timeline feature to compile historical information and photographs highlighting many of the school’s achievements. All this information, as well as more current news about the School of Medicine, is organized in chronological order and viewable at www.facebook.com/YaleMed.

Much of the material on the medical school’s revamped Facebook page is drawn from Kerry L. Falvey’s 2010 book “Medicine at Yale: The First 200 Years,” published in commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the medical school’s founding in 1810. Historical milestones featured at www.facebook.com/YaleMed include:

• The official opening of the Medical Institution of Yale College — as the medical school was then known — in 1813;
•  The history of the first X-ray image in America;
• The founding and growth of Yale’s world-renowned Child Study Center;
• The creation of the Yale System of medical education;
  Yale’s contributions to the development of the polio vaccine;
• The creation and use of the first antiviral drug;
• The development of the first transgenic mouse;
• The opening of Smilow Cancer Hospital; and much more.

To learn more about these achievements — and about what’s going on at the Yale School of Medicine today — get “social” and visit www.facebook.com/YaleMed, or watch history as it unfolds in Twitter-time at twitter.com/@YaleMed.