Willem Einthoven--inventor of electrocardiography.

P Schweitzer, S Keller: Beth Israel Medical Center, First Avenue at 16th Street, New York, N.Y. 10003, USA.

Willem Einthoven, the inventor of the string galvanometer electrocardiograph, was born in the Dutch East Indies, studied medicine in Utrecht Holland, and became chairman of the Department of Physiology at the University of Leiden. In 1924 he was awarded the Nobel Price for physiology and medicine. Einthoven became interested in electrophysiology after Waller's demonstration of the human electrogram using Lippmann's capillary electrometer. Because of important limitations of this device, Einthoven decided to construct the string galvanometer to be used for physiological research and in clinical medicine. Einthoven's main achievements in electrophysiology were the description of the normal ECG, some physiological effects on the ECG, the three ECG leads and the triangle rule. In 1906 in cooperation with the university hospital, Einthoven demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the electrocardiograph.