Heart pacemakerIn 1958, Dr Åke Senning implanted the first internal heart pacemaker. Earlier the same year, Rune Elmqvist (born in 1906) invented this pacemaker, designed to be implanted in a subcutaneous pouch in a patient suffering a cardiac disease. It used only two transistors and was the size of a hockey puck. The apparatus sent pulses to the cardiac muscle to establish normal and regular contractions. Dr. Senning (born in 1915) carried out the first pacemaker installation at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm. Although this prototype worked for only three hours, the Swedish man, Arne Larsson, who received this pacemaker, 40 years and 26 pacemakers later was still enjoying a full, normal life at age 83. |
