Pacesetter Human Tissue Stimulator (HTS) (c) David Prutchi, Ph.D., 2024
I recently acquired this device on eBay® (from a very kind seller, I may add). Although labeled as a “Rechargeable Pacemaker,” and looks just like the one at the Udvar-Hazy about which I had posted a few years ago, it is in fact a neurostimulator.
The Human Tissue Stimulator or “HTS” was developed subsequently to the rechargeable pacemaker, prompted by the clinical need for a rechargeable implantable neurostimulator.
Yesterday I visited the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, VA. There I found this demo rechargeable pacemaker being displayed as a spinoff of NASA’s technology with the following explanation:
I can’t remember exactly where I found the picture of a Pacesetter model BD102 VVI, but the story behind it is documented by Kirk Jeffrey in “Machines in our Hearts”:
“In 1968, Robert Fischell, of the Applied Physics LOaboratory at Johns Hopkins University, and cardiologist Kenneth B. Lewis had begun a collaboration that led in 1973 to a new kind of Ni-Cad battery able to function more effectively at body temperature and hermetically sealable. Alfred E. Mann, a California entrepreneur with background in the aerospace industry, had provided some financial support to the Hopkins group. Eventually Mann founded a small company to develop a pacemaker for the rechargeable battery; this was the origin of Pacesetter Systems. The rechargeable pacemaker reached the market in the summer of 1973, just as CPI introduced its lithium pacer.”
This is a picture of the first pacemaker to be implanted in a human patient. It was developed by Dr. Rune Elmqvist (1906–1996), a physician by training, but working for the Swedish company Elema-Schonander as an engineer. Dr. Elmqvist developed the device in cooperation of Åke Senning, senior physician and cardiac surgeon at the Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, Sweden. Continue reading
Alfred E. Mann holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles and honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Southern California, The Johns Hopkins University, Western University and the Technion Institute (Israel), as well as, Research Professor, University of Southern California, and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Bioengineering, University of California Los Angeles.
Alfred Mann has founded 17 companies in his career. The AIMD companies currently within his control are:
Dr. Fischell received his BSME degree from Duke University and MS and Sc.D. degrees from the University of Maryland. Dr. Fischell was employed at the Johns Hopkins University where he was the Chief Engineer of the Space Department and worked on more than 50 spacecraft. His interests at Johns Hopkins then turned to the invention of new medical devices such as pacemakers and implantable heart defibrillators. Starting in 1969, Dr. Fischell began the formation of 14 private companies that licensed his patents on medical devices. These companies include Pacesetter Systems, Inc. (now called St. Jude Medical), IsoStent, Inc., NeuroPace, Inc., Neuralieve, Inc., Angel Medical Systems, Inc, and Svelte Medical Systems, Inc. Dr. Fischell is a prolific inventor with over 200 issued U.S. and foreign patents, many of which have been the basis for new medical device companies. Continue reading