1906-1996

Biography

Rune Elmqvist celebrated his ninetieth birthday with family and friends on December 1, 1996 and died on Dec. 15, 1996. He was born in Lund, Sweden in 1906 and received an M.D. degree in 1939. He never practiced medicine. While a student, he began the development of new electrocardiographic equipment and other medical instrumentation. Between 1948 and 1972 he was Vice President of AB Elema-Schonander. In 1927, he developed an electron tube potentiometer for measurement of pH, and in 1931, a multichannel electrocardiograph for recording three simultaneous leads. In 1948, he introduced the first InkJet recorder for direct analog recording of physiologic signals, which eventually was widely used for recording the ECG, the EEG, and for phonocardiography. The ability of this device, still in use today, to record directly on ordinary paper at frequencies of more than 1,000 Hz made it a standard high fidelity recorder for differential analog recordings such as arterial pressure curves. In 1958, Dr. Elmqvist developed a rechargeable implantable cardiac pacemaker which was potted in epoxy and asynchronous in operation and was implanted on October 8, 1958 by Ake Senning in a relatively young man who had complete heart block. The unit failed after a day of operation and was replaced by a second, identical model. Later modifications of this pacemaker were implanted in London, UK, and operated successfully. One was implanted under the direction of Dr. Orestes Fiandra in Montevideo, Uruguay on February 3,1960 and functioned until the patient died on October 20, 1960. The Elmqvist design, while not the forerunner of the modern primary cell pulse generator, was the first implantable pacemaker and was successfully used clinically. Elmqvist will be remembered as one of Sweden's most prominent inventors.

- Ingvar Karlof
- Seymour Furman

Karlof I, Furman S. Rune Elmqvist, M.D. PACE 1997; 20:1002