
Cardiology
A Lifesaver in a Plastic Cup
The history of pacemakers at Siemens
3min
Published on December 1, 2020
The first cardiac pacemaker, invented in 1952, was the size of a small cathode ray tube (CRT) television, and the patient had to push it around like a shopping cart. With the invention of smaller batteries and reliable transistors, pacemakers quickly shrank in size in the years that followed, and as early as 1957 they could be worn around the neck like a pendant.

Rune Elmqvist in der Werkstatt der Universität Lund, ca. 1955


Rune Elmqvist shows a replica of the first fully implantable pacemaker, 1983
Im Siemens Healthineers MedMuseums sind verschiedene Herzschrittmacher aus der Zeit von 1966 bis 1994 ausgestellt