Willem Einthoven: the doctor who created the electrocardiogram and who changed the way to analyze the heart

Willem Einthoven was a renowned physician and Nobel Laureate in Medicine in 1924 for his contributions to the development of the electrocardiogram and its clinical application. Today, 159 years after birth,

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Einthoven was born on May 21, 1860 in what is today Indonesia, at the time when he was still a Dutch colony. He was raised in a wealthy family, his maternal grandfather was a senior official of the island of Java and his father was a military doctor. At the age of 10, after the tragic death of his father, the family decided to return to the Netherlands.

Einthoven studied medicine at the University of Utrecht, with a specialization in cardiac electrophysiology. At 26, he was already a scientist of outstanding reputation and had participated in many international scientific congresses.

During his studies, Einthoven is interested in the electrical activity of the heart after attending the demonstration of a crude electrocardiogram developed by Augustus Waller, the British physiologist, and continued the path drawn by other researchers on the subject.

His research was focused on the capillary electrometer, one of the first instruments to detect electric waves, which consists of a thin glbad cylinder filled with mercury and sulfuric acid. Thanks to his advances, he was able to recreate a more sensitive device to electrical variations and allow a more accurate recording of cardiac activity.

Einthoven made his first clinical recordings in 1902, part of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was convinced that his findings would be very useful for the clinical diagnosis.

In 1906 he was responsible for explaining to the scientific community the value of the electrocardiogram in clinical medicine, although at first they reacted with skepticism as to the utility of the technique .

Einthoven's work was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, but at the time the device was already manufactured on both sides of the Atlantic. Einthoven died two years later in Leiden, Holland, and a year later, the electrocardiogram would become a fundamental instrument of clinical medicine.