Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2231

WILLEM EINTHOVEN (1860-1927) Ein neues Galvanometer. (In Annalen der Physik. 4th series. Vol. 12 (1903), pp. 1059-1071.) 21.3 cm.

Causing a current to flow over a thin conducting thread stretched across a magnetic field, Einthoven discovered that the thread would deviate at right angles to the magnetic lines of force. The sensitivity of his "string galvanometer" enabled him to construct a crude electrocardiograph which could measure the small electric current produced by the action of the heart and eventually to correlate the measurements with various heart diseases. Einthoven was awarded the 1924 Nobel prize for his work.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 842

Gift of John Martin, M.D.