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Werner Forssmann
(1904 - 1979)
German surgeon who shared with Andre F. Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards
the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1956. A pioneer in heart
research, Forssmann contributed to the development of cardiac catheterization,
a procedure in which a tube is inserted into a vein at the elbow and
passed through the vein into the heart. While a surgical resident in
Berlin (1929), Forssmann used himself as the first human subject, watching
the progress of the catheter in a mirror held in front of a fluoroscope
screen. Forssmann's daring experiment was condemned at the time as foolhardy
and dangerous, and in the face of severe criticism he abandoned cardiology
for urology.
Forssmann's procedure, with slight modifications, was put into practice
in 1941 by Richards and Cournand, and has since become an extremely
valuable tool in diagnosis and research. It has made possible, among
other things, precise measurement of intracardiac pressure and blood
flow, injection into the heart of drugs and of opaque material visible
on X-ray photographs, and insertion of electrodes for the regulation
of the heartbeat.
Forssmann graduated in medicine from the University of Berlin (1928)
and then did postgraduate study in urology at Berlin and Mainz. He served
as chief of surgery at the city hospital in Dresden-Friedrichstadt and
in 1958 was named chief of the surgical division of the Evangelical
Hospital in Dusseldorf.
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