More X-rays and EKGs

More X-rays and EKGs

6. Willem Einthoven (1860-1927)
The Dutch doctor and physiologist is best known for his invention of a practical electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) (an early version as shown on Wikipedia is shown above). It was an achievement that won him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1924.

7. William D. Coolidge  (1873-1975)
The General Electric researcher invented the Coolidge tube for x-ray machines in 1913. "The key advantages of the Coolidge tube are its stability, and the fact that the intensity and energy of the x-rays can be controlled independently. ... The high degree of control over the tube output meant that the early radiologists could do with one Coolidge tube what before had required a stable of finicky cold cathode tubes," says a paper on Oak Ridge Associated Universities' websites.

8-9. Philip Drinker (1894-1972) and Louis Agassiz Shaw Jr. (1886-1940)
The two Harvard School of Public Health researchers invented the first widely used iron lung in 1928. The iron lung was credited with saving the lives of thousands of polio victims who otherwise would have been unable to breathe.

10. John Heysham Gibbon  (1903-1973)
The Philadelphia surgeon is remembered as the inventor of the heart-lung machine, which allowed for pioneering open-heart surgeries.

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