Willem Einthoven

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Willem Einthoven 1906

Willem Einthoven (born May 21, 1860 in Semarang on Java , Dutch East Indies , † September 29, 1927 in Leiden ) was a Dutch physician , neurophysiologist and Nobel Prize winner .

family

Willem Einthoven was born the third of six children. His father Jacob Einthoven was a military doctor and public health officer, his mother (Louise de Vogel) was the daughter of a finance officer responsible for the colonies . After the father's death (1866), the mother and her five children returned to Utrecht in the Netherlands.

In 1885 he married his cousin Frédérique Jeanne Louise de Vogel. The marriage resulted in three daughters and one son.

His grave is in the cemetery of the Reformed Church in Oegstgeest in the province of South Holland . Since 1960 he has given its name to Einthoven Hill , a hill on the Brabant Island in Antarctica.

education and profession

Einthoven graduated from high school in 1879 and enrolled at the University of Utrecht in medicine. The anatomist Willem Koster (1834–1907), who taught the mechanics of joints there , had a formative influence . In the later years of study, the physiologist Frans Cornelis Donders and the ophthalmologist Herman Snellen (1834–1908), as whose assistant he worked for a short time, influenced Einthoven's scientific interests. As the subject of his doctoral thesis, he chose the problem of "color stereoscopy ", the phenomena of which he explained from the different wavelengths of red and blue light . In 1885 he received his doctorate (Ph.D.) with Frans C. Donders cum laude . From 1886 until his death he was professor of physiology at the University of Leiden . In 1905/06 he was the rector of the university .

power

As a young academic teacher, he first dealt with the physiology of breathing (1885-1894) and formulated a new, revolutionary concept of the mechanisms of bronchial asthma . The correctness of the Einthoven concept was only experimentally confirmed after 1950.

Einthoven began to work with the Lippmann capillary electrometer in 1894 . Although he was very dissatisfied with the sensitivity and handling of the instrument, he succeeded in demonstrating different potential curves in normal persons and patients with heart disease (1900). Another success was the registration of the heart sounds with the capillary electrograph as well as the carotid pulse and the cardiac impulse as reference methods in 1894.

He discovered that the measurement sensitivity ( carrier carbon windings) could be increased, and in 1901 reported on the results and experiences with the new string galvanometer. The first electrographic recording was made in 1903. This work received just as little attention as the classic work on remote signal transmission, in which the EKG standard leads (I - connection of both arms, II - connection right arm / left foot, III - connection left arm / right foot ) were described. Clinical EKGs were first recorded in 1906 by means of a cable connection between Einthoven's laboratory and the Leiden University Hospital. Norman J. Holter took up this idea again later and developed his method of telemetry . It was not until 1908 that the reputation of Einthoven's new development spread in Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States. Scientists and physicians from all over the world came to Leiden.

In 1913 he laid down the mathematical-theoretical principles for interpreting cardiac surface potential curves , which led to the description of the "Einthoven triangle" as the basis for calculating the EKG.

Einthoven described numerous ECG changes: enlargement of the ventricle on the left and right, numerous arrhythmias , heart rate during inhalation and exhalation, QRS morphology in lead III, influence of the heart position on the EKG.

He published a total of 127 articles, mainly on the EKG. For his development of the string galvanometer and the description of the electrocardiogram , he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 . In 1923 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , in 1925 a member of the Leopoldina and in 1927 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1970 the lunar crater Einthoven was named after him.

Fonts

  • Quelques remarques sur le mécanisme de l'articulation du coude . 1882.
  • Stéréoscopie dépendant d'une différence de couleur . 1886.
  • About the action of the bronchial muscles, investigated using a new method, and about asthma nervosum . In: Archives for the entire physiology of humans and animals , Volume 51 (1892), p. 367.
  • About the shape of the human electrocardiogram . In: Archive for the entire physiology of humans and animals , Volume 60 (1895), pp. 101–123.
  • Un nouveau galvanomètre . Arch Sci Exp Nat 2 (1901) 40; also in: Archives Néerlandais des Sciences exactes et naturelles , Volume 6 (1902), pp. 625–633.
  • Le Télécardiogramme . In: Archives internationales de physiologie et de biochimie , Volume 4 (1906), p. 132.
  • Registration of human heart sounds by means of a string galvanometer. In: Archive for the entire physiology of humans and animals , Volume 117 (1907), pp. 461-472.

literature

  • Eberhard J. Wormer : Syndromes of cardiology and their creators . Munich 1989, pp. 97-104
  • R. Porter (ed.): Dizionario Biografico della Storia della Medicina e delle Scienze Naturali (Liber Amicorum) . Milano 1 (1985) 273
  • HA Snellen: History of cardiology . Rotterdam 1984
  • H. Denolin: Willem Einthoven 50th commemorative anniversary . Europ J Cardiol 8 (1978) 303
  • GE Burch, NP DePasquale: A history of Electrocardiography . Chicago 1964
  • A. de Waardt: Het Levenswerk by Willem Einthoven (1860-1927) . Haarlem 1957
  • SL Barron: The development of the electrocardiograph . London 1952
  • L. Hill : Willem Einthoven. Br Med J 2 (1927) 665
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Einthoven, Willem. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 339.

Web links

Commons : Willem Einthoven  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Willem Einthoven Biographical. In: nobelprize.org. The Nobel Foundation, accessed May 21, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Ralf Bröer: Willem Einthoven , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the 20th century , 1st edition 1995 CH Beck Munich, medical dictionary. From antiquity to the present , p. 121; 2nd edition 2001, pp. 101 and 102; 3rd edition 2006 Springer Verlag Heidelberg, Berlin, New York. doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .
  3. ↑ String galvanometer, historical instrument collection at the Johannes Müller Institute for Physiology
  4. ↑ Large string galvanometer Historical collection of instruments at the Johannes Müller Institute for Physiology
  5. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 75.
  6. ↑ Member entry of Willem Einthoven (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on 10 Mar 2017.
  7. ↑ Willem Einthoven in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
personal data
SURNAME Einthoven, Willem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch doctor and Nobel laureate in medicine (1924)
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Semarang , Dutch East Indies
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1927
Place of death Leiden , Netherlands