Willem Einthoven
Willem Einthoven ( born May 21, 1860 in Semarang (Indonesia ); † September 29, 1927 in Leiden ) was a Dutch doctor.
Family
Einthoven was born the third of six children. His father Jacob Einthoven was a military doctor and public health official, the mother ( Louise de Vogel ) was the daughter of a tax inspector in charge of the colonies. After his father's death (1866 ) the mother returned with her five children to Utrecht in the Netherlands.
In 1885 he married his cousin Frédérique Jeanne Louise de Vogel. The marriage produced three daughters and one son.
His grave is in the cemetery of the Reformed Church in Oegstgeest ( South Holland).
Education and work
Einthoven completed the high school years from 1879 and enrolled at the University of Utrecht in medicine. Formative influence was the anatomist Willem Koster (1834-1907), who taught the mechanics of the joints there. In the later years of study mainly influenced Franciscus Cornelis Donders, the physiologist and ophthalmologist Herman Snellen of (1834-1908), as his assistant, he worked for a short time, Einthoven's scientific interests. As a topic of his doctoral dissertation he chose the problem of " color stereoscopy " whose phenomena he explained from the different wavelengths of red and blue light. In 1885 he was cum laude doctorate ( Ph.D.). From 1886 until his death he was professor of physiology at the University of Leiden. 1905/ 06 he served as rector of the university.
Performance
As a young academic teacher he dealt first with the physiology of respiration (1885-1894) and formulated a new, revolutionary concept of the mechanisms of bronchial asthma. The accuracy of the Einthoven concept was experimentally confirmed only after 1950.
Einthoven began in 1894 to work with the Lippmann capillary electrometer. Although he was very unhappy with the speed and handling of the instrument by proof of different potential curves in normal subjects and patients managed with heart disease ( 1900). Another success was the registration of heart sounds using the capillary electro graph and the carotid pulse and the cardiac apex-beat as reference methods 1894.
He discovered that the sensitivity (carrier carbon coils ) 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 was just as much attention as the classic work on signal remote transmission, in which the standard ECG leads (I -. Connection between the two arms, II - connection right arm / left foot, III - connection left arm / left foot ) have been described. Norman J. Holter took up this idea again later on and developed his method of telemetry. It was not until 1908, spread the reputation of Einthoven's new development in Germany, France, England and the USA. Scientists and physicians from around the world came to suffering.
In 1913 he established the mathematical and theoretical foundations of the interpretation of cardiac surface potential curves, which led to the description of the " Einthoven triangle " as the basis of the ECG.
Einthoven described numerous ECG changes: ventricular enlargement on the left or right, many arrhythmias, heart rate during inhalation and exhalation, QRS morphology in lead III, influence of heart position on the ECG.
In total, he has published 127 posts, mainly to the ECG. For his development of the Saitengalvanometers and the description of the electrocardiogram in 1924 he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. In 1925 he became a member of the Leopoldina.
Works
- Quelques remarques sur le mécanisme de l' articulation du coude. 1882
- Stéréoscopie Dependant d'une différence de couleur. 1886
- Concerning the effect of the bronchial muscles, examined by a new method, and asthma nervosum. Arch Physiol 51 (1892) 367
- Un nouveau galvanomètre. Arch Exp Nat Sci 2 (1901 ) 40
- Le Télécardiogramme. Arch Intern Physiol 4 (1906) 132