"Defibrillators should be as common as fire extinguishers."
Michael Tighe, saved by a portable defibrillator
A defibrillator is a device that delivers an electric shock to the heart through the chest wall, with the aim of restoring a regular rhythm. It is used to treat ventriculat fibrillation, a condition where the heart muscle is no longer contracting in a coordinated fashion, thus preventing blood from being pumped around the body. If untreated, death frequently results.
American cardiac surgeon Claude Beck (1894-1971) performed the first successful defibrillation procedure in 1947 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Beck had been operating on a fourteen-year-old boy with a congenital heart problem, and had just closed the boy's chest when he suffered a cardiac arrest. Beck immediately reopened the chest and, after unsuccessfully massaging the heart by hand, tried out the defibrillator device that he was in the process of developing. Beck's device consisted of silver paddles (the size of large tablespoons) laid over the heart and connected to a 60-Hz alternating current.
In 1954 William B. Kouwenhoven, working with William Milnor, demonstrated the first closed chest defibrillation on a dog. Two years later Paul Zoll went on to perform the first successful external defibrillation of a human heart. Today defibrillators are widely available in medical settings, and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are even located in places such as shopping malls and sports stadiums for use by the general public. People judged at extreme risk of ventricular fibrillation are often fitted with implantatable defibrillators that automatically deliver an electric shock if a change in rhythm is detected.
