Nobel Prizes in Medicine as an overview on XX and XXI centuries biomedicine and health sciences: historical and epistemological considerations

Nobel Prizes are prestigious world awards attributed for intellectual achievements. There are six prizes assigned each year from a fund bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896). Each Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a sum of money and it may be attributed to one, two or three different persons. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is regarded as the most relevant scientific acknowledgement in the biomedical area and it is annually awarded to the living researcher, or researchers, who has/have most contributed to progress in this field. So far (1901-2019), 110 Nobel Prizes in Medicine have been assigned to 219 medicine laureates, of whom the youngest has been 32 years old and the oldest 87. Nobel Prizes in Medicine have been attributed twice to married couples; twelve women have received the prize and nobody has been awarded for Medicine more than once. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is fundamental as is certified by its more than secular history. Generations of distinguished scientists have justly received it for discoveries, demonstrations and applications of paramount relevance. The geographical distribution and the number of scholars endowed with the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the areas of health sciences and biomedical research related to the awards and the motivations of the annually attributed Nobel Prize in Medicine provide a complete and stimulating historical and epistemological panorama of medicine, biology and health sciences in the course of the XX and XXI centuries. (www.actabiomedica.it)