Wilson Greatbatch, Pacemaker Inventor, Dies at 92 - Polidicks

[quote]Wilson Greatbatch, a professed “humble tinkerer” who, working in his barn in 1958, designed the first practical implantable pacemaker, a device that has preserved millions of lives, died on Tuesday at his home in Williamsville, N.Y. He was 92. Enlarge This Image Associated Press Wilson Greatbatch holding a 1980s implantable pacemaker, left, and the original one that he invented in the 1950s. Add to Portfolio Medtronic Inc Greatbatch Inc Go to your Portfolio » His death was confirmed by his daughter, Anne Maciariello. Mr. Greatbatch patented more than 325 inventions, notably a long-life lithium battery used in a wide range of medical implants. He created tools used in AIDS research and a solar-powered canoe, which he took on a 160-mile voyage on the Finger Lakes in New York to celebrate his 72nd birthday. In later years, he invested time and money in developing fuels from plants and supporting work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on helium-based fusion reaction for power generation. He also visited with thousands of schoolchildren to talk about invention, and when his eyesight became too poor for him to read in 2006, he continued to review papers by graduate engineering students on topics that interested him by having his secretary read them aloud. “I’m beginning to think I may not change the world, but I’m still trying,” Mr. Greatbatch said in a telephone interview in 2007. He was best known for his pacemaker breakthrough, an example of Pasteur’s observation that “chance favors the prepared mind.” Mr. Greatbatch’s crucial insight came in 1956, when he was an assistant professor in electrical engineering at the University of Buffalo. While building a heart rhythm recording device for the Chronic Disease Research Institute there, he reached into a box of parts for a resistor to complete the circuitry. The one he pulled out was the wrong size, and when he installed it, the circuit it produced emitted intermittent electrical pulses. Mr. Greatbatch immediately associated the timing and rhythm of the pulses with a human heartbeat, he wrote in a memoir, “The Making of the Pacemaker,” published in 2000. That brought to mind lunchtime chats he had had with researchers about the electrical activity of the heart while he was working at an animal behavior laboratory as an undergraduate at Cornell in 1951. Back then, he had surmised that electrical stimulation could compensate for breakdowns in the heart’s natural circuitry. But he did not believe the electronic gear of that era could be bundled into a stimulator for continuous use, much less into a device small and reliable enough to implant. After the unintended circuit rekindled his interest, Mr. Greatbatch began experiments to shrink the equipment and shield it from body fluids. On May 7, 1958, doctors at the Veterans Administration hospital in Buffalo demonstrated that a version he had created, of just two cubic inches, could take control of a dog’s heartbeat. Mr. Greatbatch soon learned he was in a race with other researchers in the United States and Sweden to perfect a practical implant for humans. Relying on $2,000 in savings and a large vegetable garden to help feed his growing family, he went to work full time on the device in the barn behind his home in Clarence, N.Y. He was assisted by his wife, Eleanor, who administered shock tests for the pacemaker’s transistors by first taping them to a bedroom wall. His major collaborator was Dr. William C. Chardack, chief of surgery at the hospital where he had first tested the device on dogs. Mr. Greatbatch’s device was implanted in 10 human patients in 1960, including two children. The device was licensed in 1961 to Medtronic, a Minneapolis company that had developed an external pacemaker. Buoyed by the new implanted devices, Medtronic went on to become the world leader in cardiac stimulation and defibrillation. The American Heart Association says that more half a million pacemakers are now implanted every year. Mr. Greatbatch profited handsomely from his invention and invested in other projects. In one, he adapted for human use equipment he had designed to monitor the health of test monkeys launched into space by the government. But he soon returned to address a crucial limitation in his pacemaker: its zinc-mercury batteries, which could drain in as little as two years. Mr. Greatbatch acquired rights to a lithium iodine design invented in 1968 by researchers in Baltimore, and by 1972 he had re-engineered the device — it had been potentially explosive — into a compact sealed package that could be implanted in the body for a decade or more.[/quote] [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/business/wilson-greatbatch-pacemaker-inventor-dies-at-92.html[/url] RIP. You saved shitload of lives.

Sounds like a cool dude.

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[quote]He created tools used in AIDS research and a solar-powered canoe, which he took on a 160-mile voyage on the Finger Lakes in New York to celebrate his 72nd birthday.[/quote] badass goodnight sweet prince

Rest In Pace

Imagine the irony if he had died of a heart attack

Wait it thought someone from sweden invented it? [editline]28th September 2011[/editline] Oh wait we were the ones who first implanted one: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_pacemaker[/url]

[QUOTE=johan svensk;32519944]Wait it thought someone from sweden invented it? [editline]28th September 2011[/editline] Oh wait we were the ones who first implanted one: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_pacemaker[/url][/QUOTE] Sweden sure is great and thank for this information :downs: Seriously, why do I feel like kids from these norther europan nations are often much more nationalistic and vocal than for instance Americans or Brits? It seems almost like Napoleons complex on national scale. /offtopic I think this is the kind of a guy who should have a recognized burial and about who should media truly talk about. He did something that actually mattered, a lot. A vast majority of people who gain media attention were somewhat worthless.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;32520179]Sweden sure is great and thank for this information :downs: Seriously, why do I feel like kids from these norther europan nations are often much more nationalistic and vocal than for instance Americans or Brits? It seems almost like Napoleons complex on national scale.[/QUOTE] What? Usually the stereotype revolves around Americans thinking there's nothing outside USA.

[QUOTE=bunguer;32520202]What? Usually the stereotype revolves around Americans thinking there's nothing outside USA.[/QUOTE] Yeah, but try looking at how often somebody boasts about what USA did, and how often somebody has to point out about some northern contry invention or living standard and such (I am talking about here, ITN)