Medical History Facts

False teeth are often minutely radioactive.

Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. President to have been born in a hospital.

Maggots will only eat flesh if it is dead. For this reason, they are often used to remove the burnt skin from severe burn patients.

Approximately 25,000 workers died during the building of the Panama Canal, and approximately 20,000 of them contracted malaria and yellow fever.

The Band-Aid was originally made for the inventor's wife, who often cut and burned herself while cooking.

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the longest cave system on Earth - over 400 miles of tunnels. In 1842, Dr. John Croghan moved 16 sick patients underground, convinced that cave air would cure their illness. At least five died inside. Nearly all the others died within weeks of leaving. The doctor died of the same disease in 1849.

At 14, James Harrison nearly died during lung surgery and was saved by strangers' blood. He kept his promise to pay it back for 60 years, donating plasma 1,173 times. His rare anti-D antibodies created a treatment given during pregnancy that saved his own daughter's babies, and the Man with the Golden Arm saved 2.4 million Australian newborns over his lifetime.