Pacemaker
date: label: date made
content: ca 1962
notes: label: Description
content: The years immediately following World War II were exciting times in medical technology. Dozens of medical and scientific ideas burst forth after being delayed by the war. Physicians had patients who were dying, and a few doctors who had the skills built whatever devices they needed.
label: Description
content: The pacemaker is an electronic device used to regulate the heartbeat. As early as the 1930s scientists began working on large external pacemakers. In 1952 cardiologist Paul Zoll (1911–1999) demonstrated the first successful external pacemaker. From 1952 to 1960, only a few external pacemakers were produced and used because they required patients to remain in the hospital tethered to a bed.
label: Description
content: In 1958 Earl Bakken and his partner produced the first successful commercial external pacemaker. A few years later the miniaturization of transistorized circuits allowed for the development of the internal cardiac pacemaker. Electrical engineer Wilson Greatbatch and Dr. William Chardack were among the first to develop and implant an internal pacemaker. In the summer of 1960 at the Veterans Hospital in Buffalo, New York, the Chardack-Greatbatch pacemaker was successfully implanted into a 77-year-old male patient suffering from heart blockage.
label: Description
content: The earliest internal pacemakers were very large, and had to be implanted in the abdomen. The electrical leads were inserted into the heart externally. Today pacemakers are one-fourth the size of the earliest mercury battery-powered pacemakers.
label: Description
content: This early experimental pacemaker, hermetically sealed in Teflon and powered by five 1.4 volt mercury batteries, was used by Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz around 1962 at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and the Electronics Laboratory of the General Electric Company. It weighed four ounces and had two transistors, three resistors, and one capacitor. Two Teflon-coated leads were sutured into the myocardium and were controlled by an external control circuit. Adrian Kantrowitz (1918–2008) was a pioneer in the fields of cardiac surgery and implantable mechanical devices. He and his team developed the intra-aortic balloon pump. On December 6, 1967, he became the first doctor in the United States to perform a heart transplant.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Cardiology
label: Subject
content: Surgery
label: Subject
content: Medicine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Kantrowitz, Adrian. Experimental and clinical experience with a new implantable cardiac pacemaker
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Adrian Kantrowitz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-12978
label: accession number
content: 290303
label: catalog number
content: M-12978
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cardiology
label: Object Name
content: pacemaker
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 1 7/8 in x 1 in; 7.62 cm x 4.7625 cm x 2.54 cm