Nobel Prizes Explained: The First EKG

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If you’ve ever been to the doctor’s office or heaven forbid the emergency room, then chances are at one point they put an electrocardiogram device on you.
Shortened as ECG or EKG, it’s those electrodes and wires that are placed on your chest. A lot of people I have seen freak out with all these wires and electrodes - sounds scary - but it’s a painless easy way to visualize your heart beat and most important your heart health. With just this little nifty machine, it can tell healthcare workers important information.
A trained cardiologist, looking at that ecg, can tell everything from heart arrhythmias (or irregular heartbeats), to the size and position of your heart chambers, to heart attacks - that happens when there's a lack of blood flow to the heart. Using an EKG, we can even tell what artery is being blocked!
How does this contraption work?
Your heart beat is performed by muscular contraction and this is due to nerve impulses. In healthy hearts, this electrical impulse is coordinated and orderly. It starts with the pacemaker cells in the sinoatrial node, spreads through the atrium, then down to the ventricles via the atrioventricular node, bundle of his, and purkinje fibers.
Any deviation in this pattern of current and we will know.
Now this is an amazing device - that takes in physics (Electrical currents), physiology (how the heart beats), engineering. I mean this machine has changed the way we diagnose heart problems.
Who invented this miraculous contraption?
Enter Willem Einthoven. His father, a doctor, would pass when Einthoven was only 6. He would later enter school with intent to follow in his fathers footsteps. He showed an exceptional gift in medicine. Now at the time, it was known that nerve impulses controlled muscular contraction, as it does with the heart, and the heart is very coordinated. There was many hypothesis that if we were able to measure and observe these currents, then we can tell if a heart is healthy or dysfunctional.The problem was that at that time, instruments couldn’t measure the current accurately and therefore was impractical. or needed to place electrodes directly on the heart - which is not ideal.
So he set off to finding noninvasive ways to measure this current. In 1901, he would complete his first noninvasive way to measure the conduction pattern of the heart - using a string galvanometer. This device used a thin conductive string of quartz covered in silver and gold. This string was suspended by strong electromagnets. As it felt the electrical potential of the heart, the string was deflected and this could be observed and measured directly paper. He would test this vigorously and analyze results over years to ensure its accuracy and practicality. He would standardize where lead placement would be - which is still used today. Assignments of the graph as pqrst for various deflections are still used.
Now the original machine needed water cooling due to the powerful magnets, and weighed about 600 pounds. We don’t see that anymore of course, they don’t wheel one of these behemoths in your room when you're going in for your checkup. As time went on, things got, thankfully, more portable and easier, but the string galvanometer was the OG point of reference for all these new models .
For inventing the first practical ecg, he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1924.
Disclaimer:
These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any LY Med video.

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Much love, -Mike

[@AuraAzarcon]

I'm done with the USMLE steps and I watched your videos a lot! So thanks!! Enjoying these new videos too!

[@skusevlogs2644]

Keep making vids they’re awesome

[@beingrachel1992]

You helped me reach my goal for step 1!!! Thank you! Are you able to make step 2 videos??

[@LYMedVids]

Unfortunately there are no plans for step 2 videos. I'm glad you enjoy the current videos. Thanks for watching.

[@team6021]

EEG invention is also a really great story.,would love it if you will do it.