Wilson Greatbatch

Who He Was

Wilson Greatbatch was an American electrical engineer who invented the first practical implantable cardiac pacemaker. Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1919, he served as a Navy radio operator during World War II and then studied electrical engineering at Cornell University. In the late 1950s, while building a device to record heart sounds, he reached into a box of parts and grabbed the wrong resistor. Instead of recording anything, the circuit began to pulse in a steady rhythm, about one beat per second, that he immediately recognized as the rhythm of a healthy heart. He realized he had accidentally built the core of a device that could keep a failing heart beating from inside the body. Working in a barn behind his house in Clarence, New York, he shrank the circuit down to about two cubic inches and coated it in epoxy to protect it from body fluids. On May 7, 1958, surgeons in Buffalo used his device to control a dog's heartbeat, and by 1960 it was successfully implanted in human patients. Greatbatch later developed a long-lasting lithium battery that became the standard power source for pacemakers worldwide. He died in 2011 at age 92.

Why He Matters

Greatbatch's story shows that curiosity and persistence can turn a mistake into a breakthrough. He didn't ignore the odd rhythm coming from his broken circuit; he stopped, asked what it could be used for, and spent years refining it in a barn until doctors believed it could work. Millions of people have received pacemakers since, and by one estimate, the device has saved roughly 8 million lives. Just as important, Greatbatch showed what biomedical engineering looks like at its best: an engineer who understood electronics deeply, cared enough about patients to learn how the heart works, and partnered with surgeons to bring an idea from the workbench to the operating room. For young people, his career reminds them that the most important inventions often start with paying attention to the unexpected.