Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann

Werner Forssmann was a German surgeon and urologist who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with André Cournand and Dickinson Richards for developing a procedure that allowed cardiac catheterization. This technique involves inserting a thin tube into a vein or artery and guiding it into the heart or other organs to measure blood pressure, inject drugs, or perform other diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Forssmann was born in Berlin on August 29, 1904, the son of Julius Forssmann, a lawyer, and Emmy Hindenberg. He attended the Askanische Gymnasium in Berlin and then studied medicine at the University of Berlin, graduating in 1929. He received his clinical training at the University Medical Clinic under Georg Klemperer and Rudolph Fick. He then went to the August Victoria Home in Eberswalde near Berlin for surgical instruction. It was there that he performed the first human cardiac catheterization on himself in 1929. He had the idea of inserting a catheter into the heart after seeing a drawing of a similar procedure done on a horse in his physiology textbook. He hypothesized that this could be useful for delivering drugs or contrast agents directly into the heart. However, his chief of staff forbade him from trying it on a patient, fearing that it would be fatal. Forssmann decided to do the experiment on himself anyway. He persuaded a nurse, Gerda Ditzen, to assist him by promising to do it on her instead of himself. He then tricked her by tying her to the operating table and anesthetizing and cutting his own arm while pretending to do it on hers. He inserted a urinary catheter into his antecubital vein and pushed it about 65 cm until he felt it reach his heart. He then walked to the X-ray department with the catheter dangling from his arm and took a radiograph that showed the catheter lying in his right atrium. The head clinician at Eberswalde was initially furious with Forssmann for his reckless act, but later recognized his achievement and allowed him to repeat the procedure on a terminally ill woman whose condition improved after receiving drugs through the catheter. Forssmann published his findings in 1929 in the journal Klinische Wochenschrift. Forssmann then moved to the Charité Hospital in Berlin, where he worked under Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a renowned surgeon. However, Sauerbruch dismissed him for continuing his experiments without his approval. Forssmann faced similar opposition and criticism from other doctors who considered his technique dangerous and unnecessary. He was also unable to find suitable equipment or funding for his research. Forssmann then switched to urology and worked at various hospitals in Berlin and Mainz. He married Dr. Elsbet Engel, a fellow urologist, in 1933 and they had six children. He also joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and served as a medical officer in World War II, reaching the rank of major. He was captured by the Allies and spent some time as a prisoner of war. After the war, he worked as a lumberjack and then as a country doctor in the Black Forest with his wife. In 1950, he became a urological specialist at Bad Kreuznach and later the chief of surgery at the Evangelical Hospital in Düsseldorf. Meanwhile, his technique of cardiac catheterization was rediscovered and refined by other researchers, especially Cournand and Richards in the United States. They used it to study various aspects of cardiac physiology and pathology, such as cardiac output, pulmonary circulation, congenital heart defects, and coronary artery disease. They also developed new instruments and methods to make the procedure safer and more accurate. In 1956, Forssmann received the surprising news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Cournand and Richards, for his pioneering contribution to cardiology. He was also appointed as an honorary professor of surgery and urology at the University of Mainz and received several other honors and awards from various scientific societies and institutions. Forssmann died of heart failure on June 1, 1979, in a small country hospital in Schopfheim, Germany. He was buried in Schopfheim, Baden-Württemberg. His legacy lives on as one of the founders of interventional cardiology, a field that has revolutionized the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases and saved countless lives.