These 3 inventions that revolutionised the medical world were accidental
For a research team, making a mistake in judgment or a miscalculation in the lab can be extremely expensive in terms of time, money, and effort. However, a lab worker might occasionally find fortune and unintentionally unearth a scientific insight or innovation that would have otherwise stayed undiscovered.
Some of history’s most important medical discoveries happened accidentally. For instance, when Sir Alexander Fleming resumed his study of the influenza virus after a two-week vacation, he discovered that mould growth had stopped the virus. That mould turned out to be Penicillin. Now Penicillin has since been used to treat everything from pneumonia to acne. Similarly, we have pacemakers, implants, angiograms, and stents that save millions of lives every year. It might be hard to believe, but some of these key medical inventions were accidental discoveries!
Pacemaker, a device that helps the heart maintain its rhythm
In just one minute, a lot can happen; this one minute can make all the difference in scientific creation. Here is the tale of Dr Wilson Greatbatch, an American innovator and a professor at the University of Buffalo, New York. Read on to know more about the man who made a mistake that turned out to be a medical revolution. This mistake not only altered the field of heart medicine but also saved countless lives!
In 1956, Greatbatch attempted to develop a cardiac rhythm recorder (oscillator) in the barn behind his home. He goofed up by installing the wrong resistor. Instead of recording the sound of the heartbeat as he had intended, the gadget produced electronic pulses. Greatbatch experienced his pivotal ‘Aha!’ moment when listening to the device's pulse, that was similar to the sound of a healthy heart.
At that moment, Dr Greatbatch understood the potential application of the device. The device can assist in pumping and contracting blood by giving shocks to the heart muscles. It could help maintain a normal rhythm in a heart that doesn’t function correctly. In 1960, the first Greatbatch pacemaker was placed in a human patient. Greatbatch obtained a patent for the device two years later. Till now, the pacemaker has saved millions of lives and continues to do so!
X-Ray, an amazing diagnostic tool
We are all aware of X-rays, right. But did you know that this diagnostic tool, used to yield imaged of various organs and tissues was an accidental discovery? It all began in 1895 when German physicist Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen was researching the cathode ray tubes, also known as electron beams. He surrounded the tubes with thick cardboard during his experiment at Würzburg, Germany. Röntgen coatx led a screen with a fluorescent material called barium platinocyanide and placed it outside the discharge tube. In a stunning discovery, he realised that the screen began to glow when the tube was switched on. Soon, he realised that the rays were emitting out of the cathode tubes on the fluorescent screen.
He experimented with these rays on various materials and discovered they could mostly pass through them. This new form of radiation was transparent to opaque objects between the tube and the screen. Röntgen vividly illustrated this by generating a photographic image of the bones of his wife’s hand. He named the brief, unidentified rays ‘X-rays.’
Coronary Angiogram, the technique that helps visualise blood vessels
In the early 1950s, if you had asked any medical professional the consequence of injecting a dye into a patient's coronary arteries, most would give this straightforward response: Certain death. Doctors then believed the dye would cause deadly arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) known as ventricular fibrillation and cardiac death. Dye was frequently injected into chambers and valves at the time, but small vessels were beyond limits for fear of cardiac arrest (stopping of heart).
On October 30, 1958, F. Mason Sones Jr., an Ohio-based cardiologist at the basement laboratory of an Ohio hospital, was trying to examine the cardiac valves of a rheumatoid arthritis patient of 26 years old. The patient's aorta, a large conduit adjacent to the opening of the right coronary artery, needed to be injected with 40 to 50 millilitres of contrast dye as a part of the treatment. During this standard imaging procedure, the catheter slipped, injecting more than half of the dye into the patient's small arteries.
Sones was shocked as the dye accidentally entered a nearby coronary artery. He reportedly exclaimed, "We've killed him!”. Fortunately, the dye did not cause the heart to go into a deadly spasm, much to the doctor's surprise. The patient's heart soon resumed beating after a few missed beats. This lucky accident led to the development of contemporary cardiac imaging. Now this technique is used to visualise blood vessels in heart patients!