Prehistoric Andeans seemed especially fond of trepanation—holes drilled in the skull as a treatment for various ills.

James Herrick, a Chicago doctor, was the first to describe sickled red blood cells in a patient of African descent.

Juan Valverde de Amusco’s anatomical drawings corrected some earlier errors while making anatomy more accessible.

The Challenger expedition's data on ocean temperatures and currents, seawater chemistry, life in the deep sea, and the geology of the seafloor spurred the rise of modern oceanography.

Austrian-American botanist Joseph Rock collected thousands of plant samples in his 27 years in the Middle Kingdom, leaving after the Communist Party’s takeover.

Meet some of the people featured in the June 2016 issue of The Scientist.

The mass manufacture of penicillin during World War II stimulated urgent interest in other medicinally important soil microorganisms.