Wilson Greatbatch and the Cardiac Pacemaker

In 1958 Wilson Greatbatch became a pioneer in biomedical engineering when he invented, and patented, the implantable cardiac pacemaker. In 1983, the National Society of Professional Engineers recognized the innovation as one of the two most important contributions to society of the latter part of the 20th Century. Greatbatch, born in Buffalo, New York, on September 6 in 1919, graduated from Cornell University as an electrical engineer. A polymath, Greatbatch's interests took him across a number of scientific disciplines: He studied medical electronics, the electrochemistry of pacemaker batteries, and the electrochemical polarization of physiological electrodes. It was this scope of scientific understanding that enabled him to grasp the intricacies of the heart's own pacing system, what undermined its ability to maintain a proper heart beat, and how it could be supplanted by a battery-powered device that could monitor heart rate, and use electrical impulses to raise or lower it to the appropriate number of beats per minute. The first implantable cardiac pacemaker was designed on the basis of Greatbatch's original patent. Since then, the lives of an innumerable number of people have been saved and ameliorated. Nowadays, the rate of survival among patients with pacemakers is comparable to the survival rate among healthy individuals of similar age.

The pacemaker should be considered for patients suffering from bradyarrhythmia, a condition commonly caused by high blood pressure, coronary artery disease or scarring from a heart attack. The resulting overly slow heartbeat can cause dizziness, fainting spells, shortness of breath, and blurred vision. The demand pacemaker, the device most often indicated for those with bradyarrhythmia, keeps track of the heart rate and kicks in only when the heartbeat falls below a programmed minimum (typically 60 beats per minute). Other conditions such as a blocked heart, in which the heart temporarily stops beating, or tachyarrhythmia, in which the heart beats too quickly, may call for a more sophisticated pacemaker, one that can perform a number of monitoring and regulatory functions.

The implantation of a pacemaker is not considered major surgery. The device consists of a battery/timer unit and several electrodes and wires which carry the electrical impulses to the heart. The device is placed in a small pocket under the skin in the upper chest area. It is placed over a vein through which the wires are conveyed into the heart's chambers. The electrode rests directly against the inner wall of the heart. The battery/timer is attached to the wires and placed in the pocket under the skin. If post-operative reprogramming of the implanted battery/timer becomes necessary, the cardiologist can use an electromagnetic signaling device, placed on the surface of the patient's skin above the pacemaker, to signal the changes and reset its tiny on-board computer.