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The Greatest Doctors and Medical Pioneers in History

From Hippocrates to Jonas Salk, the medical minds who saved millions of lives.

60 Geniuses

Modern medicine is built on the discoveries of a small group of geniuses. Hippocrates separated medicine from superstition. Pasteur proved germs cause disease. Salk eradicated polio.

This list ranks the doctors and medical scientists whose work most extended human life.

Marnen Laibow-Koser
b. 1970 • US
IQ 268
Being a child prodigy, proficient with multiple musical instruments and programming techniques.
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William James Sidis
b. 1898 • d. 1944 • US
IQ 250
The Animate And The Inanimate
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Terence Chi-Shen Tao
b. 1975 • AU
IQ 220
When he was two years old, he was able to perform simple arithmetic. By the time he was nine, he was studying college-level math courses. An
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Kim Ung-yong
b. 1962 • KR
IQ 210
Having one of the biggest IQs in the world.
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Aristotle
b. 0384 • GR
IQ 200
A genius whose philosophical ideas are still taught, but his contributions to physics retarded progress for almost two millennia.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
b. 1749 • d. 1832 • DE
IQ 200
Faust
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Leonardo Da Vinci
b. 1452 • d. 1519 • IT
IQ 200
Painting, drawing, sculpting, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy
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Michael Grost
b. 1954 • US
IQ 200
Starting university at the tender age of 10, the maths prodigy is now a computer scientist, according to reports.
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Michael Kearney
b. 1984 • US
IQ 200
Child prodigy, youngest person to ever graduate from college (age 10)
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Nadia Camukova
b. 1976 • RU
IQ 200
It's been previously reported Camukova has the highest IQ in the world, and the talented linguist has mastered seven languages.
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Leopold and Loeb
b. 1905 • d. 1971 • US
IQ 200
Being murderer obsessed with committing the “perfect crime.” Their murder of a 14 years old was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie
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Sho Yano
b. 1990 • US
IQ 200
The youngest student at the University of Chicago to receive an MD, Yano had one degree under his belt at the age of 12.
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Vitalik Buterin
b. 1994 • RU
IQ 200
Ethereum founder, Bitcoin Magazine
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Evangelos Katsioulis
b. 1976 • GR
IQ 198
<br> Highest adult IQ in the world (2012): IQ 198, sd 15 or IQ 205, sd 16 <br>
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Empedocles
b. 0490 • GR
IQ 195
An ancient theory of natural selection; mass conservation; and the four elements which are now often misattributed to Aristotle.
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Gilbert N. Lewis
b. 1875 • d. 1946 • US
IQ 195
Covalent bondLewis dot structuresValence bond theoryElectronic theory of acids and basesChemical thermodynamicsFugacityHeavy waterNamed phot
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Henry Adams
b. 1838 • d. 1918 • US
IQ 195
The Education of Henry Adams, The History of the United States of America 1801–1817
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Hermann von Helmholtz
b. 1821 • d. 1894 • DE
IQ 195
His mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone
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Ludwig Boltzmann
b. 1844 • d. 1906 • AT
IQ 195
The development of statistical mechanics
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Nikola Tesla
b. 1856 • d. 1943 • HR
IQ 195
Inventing the Tesla coil, alternating current machinery, and a transatlantic communications system. Is regarded as one of the most important
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Pierre-Simon Laplace
b. 1749 • d. 1827 • FR
IQ 195
Predicting the existence of black holes
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Athanasius Kircher
b. 1602 • d. 1680 • DE
IQ 190
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Carl Friedrich Gauss
b. 1777 • d. 1855 • DE
IQ 190
Gaussian elimination, also known as "row reduction" or "Gaussian method" • Gauss–Jordan elimination • Gauss–Seidel method • Gauss's cyclotom
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Enrico Fermi
b. 1901 • d. 1954 • IT
IQ 190
Demonstrating first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction Fermi–Dirac statistics Fermi's golden rule Fermi paradox Fermi method Fermi theo
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Erwin Schrödinger
b. 1887 • d. 1961 • AT
IQ 190
Schrödinger's cat
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Francis Bacon
b. 1561 • d. 1626 • ENG
IQ 190
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Voltaire
b. 1694 • d. 1778 • FR
IQ 190
The novel Candide
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Friedrich Nietzsche
b. 1844 • d. 1900 • DE
IQ 190
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good & Evil
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Giordano Bruno
b. 1548 • d. 1600 • IT
IQ 190
His cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model
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Isaac Newton
b. 1643 • d. 1727 • ENG
IQ 190
Newtonian mechanics • Universal gravitation • Calculus • Newton's laws of motion • Optics • Binomial series • Principia • Newton's method
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John von Neumann
b. 1903 • d. 1957 • HU
IQ 190
Abelian von Neumann algebra Affiliated operator Amenable group Arithmetic logic unit Artificial viscosity Axiom of regularity Axiom of limit
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Henri Poincaré
b. 1854 • d. 1912 • FR
IQ 190
Poincaré conjecture
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Leonhard Euler
b. 1707 • d. 1783 • CH
IQ 190
See full list
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Linus Pauling
b. 1901 • d. 1994 • US
IQ 190
Alpha sheet • Ancestral sequence reconstruction • Backbonding • Beta sheet • Bond order
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Max Planck
b. 1858 • d. 1947 • DE
IQ 190
On the Second Principles of Mechanical Heat Theory (1879)
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Pierre Gassendi
b. 1592 • d. 1655 • FR
IQ 190
Calor vitalis (vital heat)
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Vilfredo Pareto
b. 1848 • d. 1923 • IT
IQ 190
The Pareto Principle
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Wilhelm Ostwald
b. 1853 • d. 1932 • LV
IQ 190
Catalysis, Coining the term 'Mole' and HSL and HSV
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William Shakespeare
b. 1564 • d. 1616 • GB
IQ 190
Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lyr
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Marilyn vos Savant
b. 1946 • US
IQ 186
Penning the 'Ask Marilyn' column in Parade magazine and solving the 'Monty Hall Problem' in the process.
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Alan Turing
b. 1912 • d. 1954 • ENG
IQ 185
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma • Turing's proof • Turing machine • Turing test • Unorganised machine • Turing pattern • Turing reduction • The
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Arthur Schopenhauer
b. 1788 • d. 1860 • DE
IQ 185
The World as Will and Representation (1818)
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Auguste Comte
b. 1798 • d. 1857 • FR
IQ 185
Formulating the doctrine of positivism.
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Blaise Pascal
b. 1623 • d. 1662 • FR
IQ 185
Pascal's law
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Epicurus
b. 0341 • d. 0270 • GR
IQ 185
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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
b. 1775 • d. 1854 • DE
IQ 185
Naturphilosophie
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Heraclitus
b. 0535 • d. 0475 • GR
IQ 185
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Humphry Davy
b. 1778 • d. 1829 • GB
IQ 185
Electrolysis, aluminium, sodium, potassium, calcium, strontium, magnesium, barium, boron, Davy lamp
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Immanuel Kant
b. 1724 • d. 1804 • DE
IQ 185
Critique of Pure Reason
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James Clerk Maxwell
b. 1831 • d. 1879 • SCT
IQ 185
Statistical mechanics • Maxwell's equations • Displacement current • Maxwell relations
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Jean le Rond d'Alembert
b. 1717 • d. 1783 • FR
IQ 185
D'Alembert criterion • D'Alembert force • D'Alembert's form of the principle of virtual work
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Percy Bysshe Shelley
b. 1792 • d. 1822 • ENG
IQ 185
"Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), "To a Skylark" (1820), and “The Mask of Anarchy” (1819)
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Percy Williams Bridgman
b. 1882 • d. 1961 • US
IQ 185
High-pressure physics • Operationalism • Operational definition
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Robert Boyle
b. 1627 • d. 1691 • IE
IQ 185
Boyle's law and Corpuscularianism
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Satyendra Nath Bose
b. 1894 • d. 1974 • IN
IQ 185
Bose–Einstein condensateBose–Einstein statisticsBose–Einstein distributionBose–Einstein correlationsBose gasBosonIdeal Bose Equation of Stat
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Sigmund Freud
b. 1856 • d. 1939 • AT
IQ 185
Psychoanalysis, including the theories of id, ego and super-ego, oedipus complex, repression, defense mechanism
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Thomas Edison
b. 1847 • d. 1931 • US
IQ 185
The phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb
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Thomas Young
b. 1773 • d. 1829 • GB
IQ 185
Wave theory of light • Double-slit experiment • Astigmatism • Young–Dupré equation • Young–Helmholtz theory • Young–Laplace equation • Young
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William Gilbert (physician)
b. 1544 • d. 1603 • GB
IQ 185
Studies of magnetism, De Magnete
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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
b. 1824 • d. 1907 • GB
IQ 185
Joule–Thomson effect Thomson effect (thermoelectric) Mirror galvanometer Siphon recorder Kelvin material Kelvin water dropper Kelvin wave K
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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is considered the greatest doctor of all time?

Hippocrates is the most common answer for ancient medicine. For modern medicine, Louis Pasteur and Edward Jenner (vaccination) are most often cited.

What medical pioneer had the highest IQ?

Several doctors on this list have IQs estimated above 180, including Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna.

Who invented the polio vaccine?

Jonas Salk developed the first effective polio vaccine, announced in 1955. Albert Sabin developed the oral version a few years later.

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