A pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart. The primary purpose of a pacemaker is to maintain an adequateheart rate, either because the heart's native pacemaker is not fast enough, or there is a block in the heart's electrical conduction system. Modern pacemakers are externally programmable and allow the cardiologist to select the optimum pacing modes for individual patients. Some combine a pacemaker anddefibrillator in a single implantable device. Others have multiple electrodes stimulating differing positions within the heart to improve synchronisation of thelower chambers of the heart.
In 1958, Arne Larsson (1915-2001) became the first to receive an implantable pacemaker. He had a total of 26 devices during his life and campaigned for other patients needing pacemakers.
In 1899, J A McWilliam reported in the British Medical Journal of his experiments in which application of an electrical impulse to the human heart in asystolecaused a ventricular contraction and that a heart rhythm of 60-70 beats per minute could be evoked by impulses applied at spacings equal to 60-70/minute.[1]
In 1926, Dr Mark C Lidwell of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital of Sydney, supported by physicist Edgar H Booth of the University of Sydney, devised a portable apparatus which "plugged into a lighting point" and in which "One pole was applied to a skin pad soaked in strong salt solution" while the other pole "consisted of a needle insulated except at its point, and was plunged into the appropriate cardiac chamber". "The pacemaker rate was variable from about 80 to 120 pulses per minute, and likewise the voltage variable from 1.5 to 120 volts" In 1928, the apparatus was used to revive a stillborn infant at Crown Street Women's Hospital, Sydney whose heart continued "to beat on its own accord", "at the end of 10 minutes" of