Chapter 11. Electrocardiography

1842

Carlo Matteucci

First to find that an electric current accompanies each heart beat

1843

Emil Dubois-Reymond

First to find that an “action potential” accompanies muscular contraction

1872

Gabriel Lippmann

Invented a capillary electrometer (a thin glass tube with a mercury column beneath sulfuric acid—mercury was observed to move with an action potential)

1876

E. J. Marey

First to record a frog's electrical activity using a capillary electrometer

1878

John Burden Sanderson Frederick Page

First to describe that the heart's electrical activity consists of two phases, which later were labeled as the QRS and T waves

1887

Augustus D. Waller

Published the first human ECG

1890

G.J. Burch

Devised a mathematical correction for the sluggish fluctuations of the electrometer

1891

William Bayliss

Improved the electrometer and identified three Edward Starling phases of the heart's electrical activity, which were later called the P, QRS, and T waves

1893

Willem Einthoven

Introduced the term electrocardiogram

1895

Willem Einthoven

Improved the electrometer and identified five distinct deflections, which he names P, Q, R, S, and T waves

1897

Clement Ader

Developed an amplification system called a string galvanometer

1901

Willem Einthoven

Modified the string galvanometer to produce ECGs

1905

Willem Einthoven

Began transmitting ECGs via telephone cable from the hospital to his laboratory approximately 1.5 km awaya

1906

Willem Einthoven

Published the first report on normal and abnormal ECGs2

1910

Walter James

Published the first American review of electrocardiography and also transmitted ECGs from one Horatio Williams location to another3a

1912

Willem Einthoven

Published the first report on an equilateral triangle formed by his standard limb leads (I, II, and III), which was later called Einthoven's triangle4

1920

Harold Pardee

Published the first ECG of an acute myocardial infarction5

1924

Willem Einthoven

Wins the Nobel Prize for inventing the electrocardiograph

1928

A.C. Ernstine and S.A. Levine

First to use vacuum tubes to apply the ECG, rather than the string galvanometer

1928

Frank Sanborn

Developed the frst portable ECG machine weighing 50 lb

1932

Charles Wolferth and Francis Wood

First to introduce and describe chest leads (V1 through V6)

1938

American Heart Association and Canadian General Standards Board

Published ECG standards6

1942

Emmanuel Goldberger

First to introduce and describe augmented limb leads (aVR, aVL, aVF), which together with Einthoven's three limb leads and Wolferth ...