Albert S. Hyman a New York cardiologist, together with his brother Charles, constructed in 1930-1932 an electro-mechanical device which was one of the earliest artificial pacemaker

Artificial pacemaker

A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...

s. The device was, reportedly, tested on experiment animals and at least one human patient.

The first artificial pacemaker was invented by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n anaesthesiologist Dr Mark C Lidwell, and was used by him to resuscitate a newborn baby at the Crown Street Women's Hospital, Sydney

Crown Street Women's Hospital, Sydney

Crown Street Women's Hospital was once the largest maternity hospital in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was located at 351 Crown Street , Surry Hills....

, in 1926. However it was Hyman who used and popularised the term "artificial pacemaker", which remains in use to this day.

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.

External links

• Timeline of great achievements
• Aquilina O., "A brief history of cardiac pacing", Images Paediatr Cardiol 27 (2006), pp. 17-81. (has images of Hyman's device).
• "Beating of Heart Is Revived by Electrified Needle" Popular Mechanics, March 1933 -- bottom of page 360