First Implantable Pacemaker
Arne Larsson became the first person to receive an implantable cardiac pacemaker
October 08, 1958
When the Heart Needs a Little Help
The heart beats because of electrical signals that coordinate muscle contractions. When those signals go wrong, the heart can beat too slowly, irregularly, or not at all. In the early 20th century, doctors had no way to correct these problems. Then in 1932, American cardiologist Albert Hyman invented the first artificial pacemaker — a hand-cranked external device that delivered electrical impulses to the heart through a needle inserted directly into the chest. It was crude and impractical but proved the concept worked.
The First Implantable Device
The first fully implantable pacemaker was developed by engineer Wilson Greatbatch in 1956. The story goes that he accidentally inserted the wrong resistor into a circuit he was building for a different medical device and noticed the circuit pulsed at a rate similar to the human heartbeat. He spent the next two years refining the device. On October 8, 1958, Swedish surgeon Ake Senning implanted the first pacemaker inside a human patient, Arne Larsson, who was suffering from a life-threatening heart condition. Larsson lived to age 86 and outlived both the surgeon and the inventor.
Modern Pacemakers and Their Impact
Today, about one million pacemakers are implanted worldwide every year. Modern devices are about the size of a large coin, run on long-life batteries, and can transmit data to doctors wirelessly. Some can even respond to changes in activity level, speeding or slowing the heart as needed. The pacemaker was one of the first successful implantable electronic medical devices and opened the door to defibrillators, cochlear implants, and neurostimulators. It has saved or extended millions of lives over the past seven decades. Check how many years of pacemaker history there have been.