An external defibrillator at the ready. (Image source: wikimedia commons.)

You’ve seen them on TV. Maybe you or one of your loved ones has even had to use one: external defibrillators, electronic devices that can apply enough electricity to the chest to restart the heart. Their use is very dramatic (that’s why they’re on TV so much), and no guarantee of success. But they often work, and save many lives. Defibrillators are a mainstay of modern-day EMT equipment; publicly accessible defibrillators, like the one in the picture, even when used by bystanders, save thousands of lives each year. The technology has gone through many iterations over the last few decades. But how did they start? Who came up with the apparently crazy idea to begin with?

The first doctor to imagine the possibility that external electrical stimulation could perhaps restart a stopped heart was Dr. Paul Zoll at Harvard Medical School in the late 1940s. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, he carried out substantial research into the practicality and advancement of external defibrillation technology. Dr. Zoll was the first person to successfully save someone’s life by applying an external shock (meaning, without having to perform surgery to access the heart). Many others took on and extended his work from there. We would not have the highly accessible, effective defibrillators that save so many lives today without Zoll’s pioneering work. TV shows wouldn’t be full of doctors shouting “clear!” And it was all made possible by federal funding.