Biography

 Anthony N, Damato, M.D., born January 10, 1930, in Jersey City, New Jersey, was a graduate of St. Peter's College in Jersey City and a 1956 graduate of Georgetown University Medical School in Washington, D.C. He was an intern at the District of Columbia General Hospital from 1956 to 1957, a 1957 to 1958 medical resident at Seton Hall College of Medicine in Jersey City, and a 1958 to 1959 postdoctoral fellow in Medicine/Cardiology at D.C. General Hospital.

In 1960, he became Deputy Chief of the cardiopulmonary laboratory at the United States Public Health Service Hospital in Staten Island, New York, and in 1962, Chief of the Cardiovascular program and Director of Cardiac fellowships. He remained in those positions until the hospital closed in 1981. During that time he trained a group of cardiac fellows who, with his long-term colleagues Emanuel Stein and Sun Lau, were among the founders of clinical cardiac electrophysiology. In 1969, Drs. Sherlag, Kosowsky, and Damato described a reliable, reproducible, and simple technique to record and pace the human His bundle potential with a catheter electrode. This discovery, which barely achieved publication, became the basis of and the major tool for clinical cardiac electrophysiology and allowed the development of recognizably modern cardiac electrophysiology, and arrhythmia investigation and management. After demonstrating catheter recording of the His bundle potential, progressive understanding of the nature of atrioventricular (AV) conduction, AV conduction block, and the electrophysiological correlation of bradycardias followed. During succeeding years a group of talented young men became Damato acolytes and participated in the discovery of many of the basic mechanisms of atrial and ventricular bradyarrhythmias, those resulting from disturbances of AV conduction, and tachyarrhythmias resulting from supraventricular, ventricular, and conduction disturbances. Stimulation of the His bundle was demonstrated as were a variety of drug effects, reentry into the His-Purkinje system, anterograde and retrograde conduction, the gap phenomenon in humans, postextrasystolic potentiation, and much more of the basics of modern cardiac electrophysiology.

As important as his seminal work in the development of clinical cardiac electrophysiology and the study of bradycardias and tachycardias during cardiac catheterization was the training of an international cadre of young clinical cardiac electrophysiologists. These have taken dominant positions in the front rank of cardiology and electrophysiology and have pushed the frontiers of research and clinical practice even further. They have continued the research and clinical efforts and training of succeeding generations of electrophysiologists. Those who trained in his laboratory included: Drs. Akhtar, Batsford, Berkowitz, Cannom, Caracta, Cohen, Elizari, Gallagher, Goldreyer, Gomes, Haft, Helfant, Josephson, Kosowsky, Lister, Mirowski, Ogunkelu, Patton, Pauley, Prystowsky, Przybyla, Reddy, Ricciuti, Rosen, Ruskin, Scherlag, Schnitzler, Seides, Stein, Steiner, Ticzon, Vardas, Varghese, Weisfoget, Weiss, Wit, and Young.

When the Public Health Service Hospital was closed in 1981, he became chief of the division of cardiology at the Misericordia Hospital and Medical Center in the Bronx, New York and in 1984, director of the Department of Medicine at Jersey City Medical Center, New Jersey. He retired in New Jersey.

- Seymour Furman, M.D.