Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Dr. David Delman, an electrical engineer and physician who had worked at Avery Laboratories. Dr. Delman showed me several examples of Avery’s radiofrequency-powered diaphragm pacing equipment, including an external transmitter, antenna, and implanted receiver. The transmitter’s coupling coil immediately caught my attention because it is essentially identical to the external coil used with the Cutler-Hammer/Airborne Instruments Laboratory RF cardiac pacemaker developed for William W. L. Glenn about a decade earlier. That resemblance is especially interesting because the two systems share a common technological background.
