Moderne Knochenbruchbehandlung im allgemeinen Krankenhaus. Forschungsergebnisse und erste Erfahrungen mit einem neuen Kunststoff-Füllungsmaterial für ... Akademie der Wissenschaften) (German Edition)
Werner Forssmann was a physician from Germany, who was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contribution in seminal work on heart catheterization. He was noted his pioneering self-experiment in establishing of heart catheterization as a standard diagnostic and treatment procedure in cardiology. Forssmann’s self-experiment pushed the boundaries of medicine into a new era and opened the door of modern cardiology.
Background
Werner Forssmann was born on August 29, 1904 in Berlin, Germany to Julius Forssmann and Emmy Hindenberg.
His father, a barrister, served as a captain in the army during World War I, where he was killed in 1916.
Education
He was educated at the Askanische Gymnasium (secondary grammar school) in Berlin. Leaving school in 1922, he went to the University of Berlin to study medicine, passing his State Examination in 1929. For his clinical training he went to the University Medical Clinic, working under Professor Georg Klemperer, and he studied anatomy under Professor Rudolph Fick. For clinical instruction in surgery he went, in 1929, to the August Victoria Home at Eberswalde near Berlin.
In 1931 he began work with Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a famous German surgeon, where he remained until 1932. At the start of World War II, he became a medical officer. In the course of his service, he rose to the rank of Major, until he was captured and put into a U.S. POW camp. Upon his release in 1945, he worked as a lumberjack and then as a country medic in the Black Forest with his wife. From 1950 onwards he practised as a urological specialist at Bad Kreuznach. In 1958 he became chief of the surgical division of the Evangelical Hospital at Dusseldorf.
He also published numerous articles on urological matters in Zeitschrift fur Urologie.
Although the German medical community considered Forssmann's theory and experiment to be nothing more than a "circus stunt," the Americans saw his work in a different light.
Within three years of his experiment, two doctors at Columbia University, Andre F. Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards, Jr., studied his experiment and developed ways to use it for both research and diagnosis.
Upon hearing of the announcement, Robert F. Loeb, executive officer of the Department of Medicine at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons credited the work of the three men.
The technique of cardiac catheterization of the heart was discovered by Forssmann in Germany in 1929 and was developed and extended greatly in its application in the laboratories of Professors Cournand and Richards.
As a result, for example, the accuracy of diagnosis has been greatly enhanced and it has made possible the selection of those patients with heart disease who may be expected to be improved by surgery of the heart.
He died in Schopfheim, Germany of heart failure on 1 June 1979. His wife died in 1993.
From 1932 to 1945, he was a member of the Nazi Party.
Views
Dr Werner Forssmann explored methods for a more direct access to the cardiac chambers, finding it necessary to make the observations on himself. Later he was able to show that the right-sided cardiac chambers could be visualized radiographically after injection of iodinated contrast materials through a catheter into the right atrium, and again he tried the method on himself.
In 1929, while in surgical residence at Eberswald Surgical Clinic, Werner Forssmann theorized that drugs for cardiac resuscitation could be safely injected into the heart by inserting a catheter into a vein in the elbow and threading it through the body directly into the heart.
He was alone in this theory as the physicians of the day believed that entry directly into the heart would be fatal.
Although he had proven his theory, Forssmann was fired from his position and his work was rejected.
Forssmann turned to other work, becoming a pulmonary surgeon and urologist.
Quotations:
He commented in reference to his own experiment in 1929, "the time was not yet ripe for this discovery."
Membership
German Surgical Society
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"When he learned that he would share the Nobel Prize with Cournand and Richards, Forssmann said, "No one in West Germany has paid any attention to me. The Americans were the ones who recognized my work."
Connections
In 1933 Forssmann married Dr. Elsbet Engel, who is also a specialist in urology. They have six children: Klaus (b. 1934), Knut (b. 1936), Jörg (b. 1938), Wolf (b. 1939), Bernd (b. 1940), and Renate (b. 1943).