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Most childhood vaccines are 90–99% effective in preventing disease. Side effects are rarely serious.
The first documented use of surgical anesthesia in the United States was in Connecticut in 1844.
In 1886, William Bates reported on the discovery of a substance produced by the adrenal gland that turned out to be epinephrine (adrenaline). In 1904, this drug was first artificially synthesized by Friedrich Stolz.
Once thought to have neurofibromatosis, Joseph Merrick (also known as "the elephant man") is now, in retrospect, thought by clinical experts to have had Proteus syndrome. This endocrine disease causes continued and abnormal growth of the bones, muscles, skin, and so on and can become completely debilitating with severe deformities occurring anywhere on the body.
Cytomegalovirus affects nearly the same amount of newborns every year as Down syndrome.