Willem Einthoven was a renowned Dutch physiologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1924 for inventing the first practical electrocardiogram (ECG). He was born on 21st May 1860, in Semarang on the island of Java, in the former Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).
In 1885, Einthoven received his medical degree from the University of Utrecht. He became a professor at the University of Leiden in 1886.
In 1902, Einthoven became a Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1903, Einthoven developed the first string galvanometer. The device could measure the changes of electrical potential caused by contractions of the heart muscle and record them graphically. He is best remembered for this ground-breaking invention, which was the first practical electrocardiograph.
He was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram. Einthoven’s invention could detect, and record even the minutest electric currents produced by the human heart. Einthoven died on 29th September 1927.
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