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Bioelectromagnetism

monitoring of bio-signals generated from bioelectromagnetic phenomena. Tis transistor replaced the

vacuum tube amplifcation device. Te three inventors received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for

their research on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor efect. Bardeen has been the only

person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice. He won it with Leon Neil Cooper of Brown

University and John Robert Schriefer (1931–2019) of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1972 for their

jointly developed theory of superconductivity usually called the Bardeen-Cooper-Schriefer theory. As

mentioned above, the great invention of the transistor afected the development of electronic technology

and instrumentation in bioelectromagnetism. Using developed instruments, the detection, recording,

and monitoring of weak bio-signals inside the body could easily be performed without weaknesses.

Te history of the cardiac pacemaker and the cardiac defbrillator will be introduced shortly.

Regarding direct cardiac pacing, in 1871, Franz Steiner, assistant of Christian Albert Teodor Billroth

(1829–1894), surgeon of the University of Vienna, close friend of Johannes Brahms, pointed out frst that

cardiac arrest was a frequent complication due to chloroform anesthesia and reported that the heart

could be made to beat by electrical stimulation with direct current (Geddes, 1994; Steiner, 1871). He

stimulated rhythmically the heart of over-anesthetized animals to produce cardiac arrest. Te animals

included three horses, one donkey, ten dogs, 14 cats, and eight rabbits. Afer Steiner’s suggestion, Hugo

Wilhelm von Ziemssen (1829–1902), a German physician, in 1882 performed experiments with both

mechanical and electrical heart stimulations and applied direct cardiac pacing to human subjects with

normal chests, and found that periodic pulses of direct current applied at a rate slightly higher than the

heart’s own beat rate would accelerate the beat until it coincides with the external stimulus (Rowbottom

and Susskind, 1984). He applied cardiac pacing to a 42-year-old woman.

Fify years later, in 1932, Albert Salisbury Hyman (1893–1972), an American cardiologist, developed

with his brother, the frst clinical artifcial pacemaker (not portable) for delivery of induction shock

stimuli (60–120 minutes) to the atria. Tis was an electric machine device which was tested on experi­

mental animals and at least one human patient. While he was still a student at Harvard University in

1918, he concluded that if the artifcial stimulus could be delivered directly to the heart, and in particular

to the right atrial area near the sinus node, a normal cycle would start up again and continue long enough

to supply the coronary artery system with enough blood to reactivate the sinus node (Rowbottom and

Susskind, 1984).

In 1952, Paul Maurice Zoll (1911–1999), an American cardiologist, performed cardiac pacing with

modern equipment. Te intensity and duration of the electrical pulses could be carefully controlled by

electronic technology (Rowbottom and Susskind, 1984). So, he is the pioneer in the development of the

artifcial cardiac pacemaker and cardiac defbrillator. Back in 1899, Jean-Louis Prevost (1838–1927), a

Swiss physiologist, from the University of Geneva, and Frédéric Battelli (1867–1941), an Italian physiolo­

gist, reported frst about cardiac defbrillation. Tey showed that death from electric shock was caused

by massive fbrillary contractions, and tested the induction of ventricular fbrillation on dogs using

low voltage electric shocks. On the other hand, high-voltage electric shocks did not induce ventricular

fbrillation. William Bennet Kouwenhoven (1886–1975), electrical engineer, professor at Johns Hopkins

University, invented the original type of today’s external defbrillator. During his student days, in the

1930s, his interest was in the relationship between electric shocks and its efects on the human heart.

Tis led to the invention of the defbrillator. His defbrillator was frst used by Claude Beck (1894–1971),

professor of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University in 1947 and nominee for the Nobel Prize in

1952. He contributed to the innovation of various cardiac surgery techniques. During the 1960s–1970s,

Kouwenhoven evaluated and documented the human health efect of linemen exposed to electric feld

generated from high voltage transmission lines.

In 1958, the engineer Rune Elmqvist (1906–1996) at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm and Åke

Senning (1915–2000), a Swedish surgeon, developed the frst implanted cardiac pacemaker with a nickel-

cadmium battery, which lasted only a few days (Rowbottom and Susskind, 1984). Tis battery could be

recharged from outside body. Te invention of the transistor led to the charging of this battery suc­

cessful. Te development of portable pacemakers depended on transistor technology. Clarence Walton