News & Analysis
Pacemaker was born of a blackout
Charles Murray
12/10/2012 6:46 PM EST
Team play
Bakken wasn't alone, however, in the transformation of the medical equipment industry. While still working from the garage in 1961, he teamed with legendary inventor Wilson Greatbatch to take pacemaker technology to the next level. Greatbatch, who patented the concept of an encapsulated pacemaker that could operate inside the body, virtually eliminated the need for users to hang the devices from their belts and live with electrical leads running through their chest walls. When Greatbatch worked with a Buffalo, NY, heart surgeon named Dr. William Chardack to get his devices implanted in patients, the pacemaker had suddenly taken another major step forward. Greatbatch licensed the technology to Bakken and Medtronic in 1961.
"Wilson and Earl became great friends," Larry Maciariello, Greatbatch's son-in-law, told EE Times. "He served as a consultant for Medtronic for a long time."
Click on image to enlarge.
Today, Greatbatch's accomplishments are recognized on a par with Bakken's. A holder of 325 patents, Greatbatch was named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1986 and received a National Medal of Technology from then-president George Bush in 1990. His company, Greatbatch, Inc., still supplies lithium iodine batteries used in today's pacemakers.
"He was a genuine visionary -- a big thinker," Maciariello said. Greatbatch, who died at 92 in 2011, was issued his final patent in the last year of his life.
Today, pacemaker technology continues to build on the developments of Bakken and Greatbatch . New wireless technology using ultrasound to stimulate hearts is undergoing human trials in Europe. The new technology shows that electronics is broadening its role in cardiac therapy -- a concept that wouldn't have surprised Bakken.
Click on image to enlarge.
"I was simply awestruck by the fact that electricity, properly applied, could do a great deal more than light up a room or ring a doorbell," Bakken wrote in his autobiography. "I realized that electricity defines life." -- Charles Murray is editor at UBM Tech's Design News.
Bakken wasn't alone, however, in the transformation of the medical equipment industry. While still working from the garage in 1961, he teamed with legendary inventor Wilson Greatbatch to take pacemaker technology to the next level. Greatbatch, who patented the concept of an encapsulated pacemaker that could operate inside the body, virtually eliminated the need for users to hang the devices from their belts and live with electrical leads running through their chest walls. When Greatbatch worked with a Buffalo, NY, heart surgeon named Dr. William Chardack to get his devices implanted in patients, the pacemaker had suddenly taken another major step forward. Greatbatch licensed the technology to Bakken and Medtronic in 1961.
"Wilson and Earl became great friends," Larry Maciariello, Greatbatch's son-in-law, told EE Times. "He served as a consultant for Medtronic for a long time."
Click on image to enlarge.
Wilson
Greatbatch, who developed the first implantable pacemaker and licensed
it to Medtronic, was inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in
1986. (Source: Larry Maciariello)
Today, Greatbatch's accomplishments are recognized on a par with Bakken's. A holder of 325 patents, Greatbatch was named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1986 and received a National Medal of Technology from then-president George Bush in 1990. His company, Greatbatch, Inc., still supplies lithium iodine batteries used in today's pacemakers.
"He was a genuine visionary -- a big thinker," Maciariello said. Greatbatch, who died at 92 in 2011, was issued his final patent in the last year of his life.
Today, pacemaker technology continues to build on the developments of Bakken and Greatbatch . New wireless technology using ultrasound to stimulate hearts is undergoing human trials in Europe. The new technology shows that electronics is broadening its role in cardiac therapy -- a concept that wouldn't have surprised Bakken.
Click on image to enlarge.
Bakken's
first unit, built in 1957, reduced the cardiac pacemaker from an
AC-powered, cart-based instrument to the size of two cigarette packs.
(Source: Medtronic, Inc.)
"I was simply awestruck by the fact that electricity, properly applied, could do a great deal more than light up a room or ring a doorbell," Bakken wrote in his autobiography. "I realized that electricity defines life." -- Charles Murray is editor at UBM Tech's Design News.
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Kevin N
12/14/2012 1:09 AM EST
Ha! The dude got rich off what seems to be a 555 timer! I think he got the schematic out of a Forrest Mims notebook.
I like the extensive testing they did those days. The dude wires up a 555 in a metal box and the next day they hook it up to a girl in the hospital.
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