First External Cardiac Pacemaker, 1950

Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted November, 2009

Here, in front of the western entrance to the Best Institute at 114 College Street, is a plaque erected by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in September 2009.

Plaque coordinates: 43.660335 -79.389508

In 1950, in Room 64 of the Banting Institute at the University of Toronto, Drs. Wilfred Bigelow and John Callaghan successfully paced the heart of a dog using an external electronic pacemaker-defibrillator having implanted electrodes. The device was developed by Dr. John Hopps at the National Research Council of Canada. This pioneering work led to the use of cardiac pacemakers in humans and helped establish the importance of electronic devices in medicine.

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