In 1950, Walter L. Blum, while serving as professor of biochemistry at Emory University, developed dextran, a synthetic substitute for blood plasma.

In 1958 physician K. Brodman formulated a computer method for medical diagnosis, feeding patient data into an IBM processor.

In 1959 Houston physician B. S. Freeman successfully transplanted a girl's toe to replace a thumb lost in an accident.

University of Illinois clinician W. J. Fry began destroying small sections of his patients' brains with radiation to reduce the tremors of Parkinson's disease in 1958.

John W. Gofman, a coronary researcher at the Donner Laboratory of the University of California, developed the Gofman test, a procedure that separated human blood parts in a centrifuge to predict atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.

In 1958 Carl Heller, a University of Oregon clinician, administered large doses of the female hormone progesterone to twenty-one convict volunteers and reported...