Albert Salisbury Hyman (1893 - 1972), a Harvard-trained New York cardiologist, together with his brother Charles, constructed in 1930-1932 an electro-mechanical device which was one of the earliest

artificial pacemaker An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eit ...

s. The device was, reportedly, tested on experiment animals and at least one human patient. The first artificial pacemaker was invented by Australian anaesthesiologist Dr Mark C Lidwell, and was used by him to resuscitate a newborn baby at the

Crown Street Women's Hospital Crown Street Women's Hospital (now-closed) was once the largest maternity hospital in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was located at 351 Crown Street (corner of Crown and Albion Streets), Surry Hills. The hospital was one of severa ...

, Sydney, in 1926. However it was Hyman who used and popularised the term "artificial pacemaker", which remains in use to this day. Aquilina O,
A brief history of cardiac pacing
", ''Images Paediatr Cardiol'' 27 (2006), pp.17-81. Lidwell did not patent his invention and chose to remain anonymous for many years to avoid public controversy, and Hyman's machine did not gain general acceptance from the medical community, which opposed him in his attempts to popularise the use of his version of the invention.

References

External links

Timeline of great achievements

"Beating of Heart Is Revived by Electrified Needle"
''Popular Mechanics'', March 1933—bottom of page 360 1893 births 1972 deaths American cardiologists Harvard University alumni {{US-physician-stub