Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

Eustachius is credited with several anatomical discoveries, among them the tensor tympani muscle and the Eustachian tube, published in his chapter entitled De auditus organis. In the last respect, however, he was anticipated by Alcmaeon, about 500 BCE. Eustachius was the first to describe the chorda tympani as a nerve. Plate VIII illustrates the “Eustachian valve”, the valvula venae cavae in the right auricle. Eustachius recognized the thoracic duct in the horse and even detected some of its valves. His work on this structure was forgotten until Aselli’s description of the lacteals. This work includes first description of the adrenals. Several of the plates deal with the structure of the kidney.

Basing his work on the dissection of fetuses and newborn children, Eustachi was the first to study the teeth in any considerable detail. In his Libellus de dentibus attached to this work he provided an important description of the first and second dentitions and described the hard outer tissue and soft inner structure of the teeth. He also attempted an explanation of the problem of the sensitivity of the tooth’s hard structure. The Libellus has a separate title page dated 1563. It was reprinted with German translation, Wien, Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1951. It was translated into English by Joan H. Thomas and edited and introduced by David A. Chernin and Gerald Shlklar as as A little treatise on the teeth. The first authoritative book on dentistry (1563) (Canton, MA, 1999). Eustachi’s illustrations of the teeth were first published in his Tabulae anatomicae, edited by Giovanni Maria Lancisi (No. 391). For further information, including a discussion of the states of the Opuscula, see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

Digital facsimile of the 1563 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

In 1595 Pineau demonstrated the vestigial foramen ovale in the adult heart, settling the question of the perviousness of the septum of the heart. His work was first published in 1597. He published this study in a frank treatise on virginity and the ways of losing it. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

“Botallo’s duct”, the ductus arteriosus; “Botallo’s foramen”, the foramen ovale interauriculare; and “Botallo’s ligament”, the ligamentum arteriosum, are described in this work. However two of these traditional attributions of discovery should more accurately be called independent rediscovery since Botallo’s duct had been mentioned in the 2nd century by Galen. More recently Falloppio had mentioned the ductus arteriosus in 1561 and Vesalius had mentioned both the ductus arteriosus and the foramen ovale in 1561.

Valsalva described the aortic “sinus of Valsalva”.

Skoda’s theory of the heart beat.

The “Purkinjĕ fibres”; identification of the conductor system of the heart. Reprinted in his Opera omnia, 1939, 3, 52-63. German version in Arch. Anat. Physiol, wiss. Med., 1845, 281-95; English translation by W. W. Gull in Lond. med. Gaz., 1845, 36, 1066-69, 1156-58. Historical note by V. Kruta in Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med., 1971, 47, 351-7.

Remak was first to describe the intrinsic ganglia of the heart.

The discovery of the inhibitory power of the vagus. Also published in Wagner’s Handwörterbuch der Physiologie, 1846, 3, 45-51. Partial translation in J. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed., 1966. p.296.

Includes (pp. 76-77) a description of what is probably the first perfusion of the isolated heart.

Experimental ventricular fibrillation.

Discovery of the ganglion cells at the auriculo-ventricular junction, “Bidder’s ganglion”.

Stannius initiated research on the physiology of the conduction system of the heart. He illustrated vagal inhibition of the heart beat and indicated the existence of the pacemaker of the heart. Stannius also showed that the apex of the heart ceases to beat rhythmically when separated physiologically by ligature or clamp from the rest of the heart, while the sinus remains unaffected. Partial translation in J. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd. ed., 1966, pp. 59-60.

Claude Bernard made strenuous efforts to introduce experimental methods into physiology. The above includes his classic work on the function of the liver, pancreas, and gastric glands. Vol. 1, p. 126: Catheterization of the heart of a dog (in some editions, p. 119). See also No. 634.

Records first use of telegraphy to record and measure the heart beat and pulse, written and published by the patient, who lived to the age of 45. This was done in Boston with an instrument placed against Groux’s chest, the other end of which was in contact with the circuit breaker of the telegraph. Dr. J. B. Upham called his device a sphygmosphone. Includes reprint of "Report of the Committee of the N.Y. Pathological Society, appointed to examine the case of Mr. E. A. Groux….", American medical monthly, 1859, 11, 35-40 with supplementary material, and new illustrations.  

Marey’s law of the heart. Marey was the first to realize the relationship between the blood pressure and the heart rate.

Rapidly-repeated blows on the belly of a frog caused cessation of the heart-beat, which Goltz concluded was brought about by reflex inhibition through the vagus, an important contribution to the knowledge of the mechanism of shock.

Discovery of the accelerator or excitatory nerve fibres of the heart (pp. 191-232), “Bezold’s ganglia”.

First direct records of the heart impulse by means of a “cardiac sound” and the sphygmograph – recording tambours, which wrote on a moving drum covered with smoked paper.

“Czermak’s vagus pressure”. Czermak found that mechanical pressure on a spot of the carotid triangle in the neck produced lowering of the heart rate.

First description of the rhythmic variations in tone of the vasoconstrictor center (Traube-Hering waves).

Discovery of the vasomotor reflexes.

Bernstein introduced the differential rheotome, and the first electrocardiograms were obtained with it by Marchand in 1877 (No. 823.1).

Fick principle for the calculation of cardiac output based on measuring the minute volume of oxygen consumption and the arteriovenous oxygen difference. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

First investigation of the effect of poisons on the frog’s heart. In some cases Schmiedeberg found that stimulation of the vagus after administration of poisons produced acceleration of the heart rate.

Bowditch was the first to research the relationship between the strength of the heart beat and the interval between beats. He established the “all-or-nothing” principle of heart muscle contraction. He founded, at Harvard, the first physiological laboratory in the United States.

Translated into English by J. Schaefer, W. Deppert, M. I. M Noble, et al as "On the peculiarities of excitability which the fibres of cardiac muscle show," in M.I.M Nobel & W. A. Seed, eds., The Interval-force relationship of the heart: Bowditch revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 3-43.

Marchand obtained the first electrocardiogram. Using the differential rheotome he measured the time course of the potential variations from the frog’s heart.

These workers were among the first to study the action currents of the heart, and made the first records (with the capillary electrometer) of the minute electrical current produced by the beating of the heart. See also No. 831.

“Ringer’s solution”

Martin devised a form of perfusion of the isolated mammalian heart – one of the greatest single contributions ever to come from an American physiological laboratory. This made possible his later work on the heart. See W. Bruce Fye,  "H. Newell Martin and the isolated heart preparation: The link between the frog and open heart surgery," Circulation , 73 (1986) 857-864.
Also in 1881 Martin published a different account: "A new method of studying the mammalian heart," Studies from the Biological Laboratory, 2 (1881) 119-130, with an engraved plate drawn by Martin.

Croonian Lectures, 1881. Gaskell’s classical memoir on the muscles and nerves of the heart included a description of “Gaskell’s nerves”, the accelerator nerves of the heart. He showed that the motor impulses from the nerve ganglia in the sinus venosus influence the heart rhythm but do not originate cardiac movements, which are due to the rhythmic contraction of the heart muscle. This led to the artificial production of heart block, the name for which Gaskell based on an expression of Romanes. See No. 632.

Gaskell showed that the efferent vasoconstrictor fibers of the heart originated from the lateral horn of the spinal cord.

See No. 824. This paper contains several tracings of the heart's electrical activity recorded with a capillary electrometer, the earliest graphic recorder of bioelectric signals. These were the "first undistorted tracings of the electrical activity of the heart" (Burch & Depasquale, A history of electrocardiography, 1990, 102).

Martin was among the first to study the effect of temperature changes upon the isolated heart.

Waller was first to use electrodes and leads in demonstrating the action currents of the heart, avoiding the necessity of opening the chest of laboratory animals and preparing the way for present-day clinical electrocardiography. He obtained the first electrocardiogram in man.

The phlebograph, which developed into the polygraph. With it Mackenzie obtained simultaneous tracings of the pulsations of the jugular vein and radial artery.

His described the atrioventricular bundle which was later named after him. English translation in F. A. Willius and T. E. Keys, Cardiac classics, 1941, p. 695.

Kent also discovered the atrioventricular bundle (“bundle of Kent”), a narrow band of muscle between the auricles and ventricles of the heart. Its purpose is to act as a bridge for contractile impulses between the auricles and ventricles.

First employment of cinematograph to record the cardiac changes during all phases of heart contraction.

The first defibrillation. “Prévost and Battelli produced ventricular fibrillation in dogs by shocking with weak currents. They then shocked the fibrillating heart with a stronger current—the second, or counter, shock. The fibrillation stopped, and a few seconds later the heart resumed its normal beating” (Callahan et al., Classics of Cardiology, Vol. 3).

A classic account of the development and architecture of the muscular wall of the heart.

One of the most distinguished of modern physiologists, Einthoven directed much of his research to the development and perfection of recording instruments. His most famous work was in connexion with his string galvanometer, a perfection of the instrument invented by J. S. C. Schweigger, of Halle. Einthoven was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1924.

First description of Einthoven's string galvanometer that recorded electrical changes occurring in the human heart. Includes the first illustration of an EKG (ECG) recording. Modern electrocardiography became a reality through his work, and the string galvanometer finally displaced the capillary electrometer in the measurement of the electric current produced by the contracting heart. 

Frank obtained the first perfect pulse curves with special manometers, the so-called “Frank capsules”.

Fetal electrocardiogram recorded. Cremer was also the first to record an electrocardiogram with an electrode in the esophagus.

Discovery of the sinoatrial node, the “pacemaker of the heart”. Reprinted in Willius & Keys, Cardiac classics, 1941, pp. 747-62.

Tawara discovered and described the atrioventricular node – “node of Tawara”.

Translated into English by Kozo Suma and Munehiro Shimada as The conduction system of the mammalian heart: An anatomical-histological study of the atrioventricular bundle and the Purkinje fibers. London: Imperial College Press, 2000.

Phonocardiography.

First experimental study of the electrocardiographic changes in bundle-branch block.

"Later, as professor and director of the internal clinic at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus in Vienna, Eppinger became one of the most notorious of Nazi doctors. In the Dachau concentration camp he and his colleague professor Wilhelm Beigelbock conducted cruel experiments on 90 Gypsy prisoners to test the potability of sea water. The Gypsies became so profoundly dehydrated that they were seen licking the floors after they were mopped just to get a drop of water. Having sea water as their only source of fluid, the Gypsies developed severe physical problems and died within six to twelve days.

"Eppinger was also notorious for his inhuman treatment of patients. On one occasion he brought a patient to the lecture theatre and introduced him to the students with the following words: "Nephritis can be compared with a tragedy in five acts and" – pointing to the patient – "this is the final act of the tragedy." The patient broke down in tears and was obviously distressed throughout the demonstration. (Otto Flemming)" (http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2815.html, accessed 02-2018).

Abel was one of America’s most distinguished pharmacologists. See A. M. Harvey. "Pharmacology’s giant," Johns Hopk. med. J., 1974, 135, 245-58.

Bainbridge found that cardiac reflex action is produced by inhibition of vagus tone and excitation of the accelerator nerves.

Starling’s “law of the heart”.

Sir Thomas Lewis was a pioneer in the application of electrocardiography to clinical medicine. His book was both an exhaustive treatise on the subject for its time, and a valuable bibliographical source. Second edition: The mechanism and graphic registration of the heart beat, 1920; third and last edition,1925.

Coronary arterial anatomy studied by radiography of the injected arteries by a standard technique.

Mechanical heart.

Grollman introduced the acetylene method of determination of cardiac output.

In 1931, the year before his son’s sensational kidnapping, the celebrity aviator began working with Alexis Carrel at the Rockefeller Institute on a perfusion pump which would allow the cultivation of whole organs in vitro. His pump maintained a sterile, pulsating circulation of fluid through excised organs, and enabled Carrel to keep organs such as the thyroid gland and kidney alive and functioning. It was a forerunner of the modern heart pump. (See also No. 856.1). Reprinted in Carrel and Lindbergh, The culture of organs, New York, Paul Hoeber, 1938.

Remarkably, Lindbergh maintained a long term interest in this project, authoring another paper as late as 1966:
"An apparatus for the pusating perfusion of whole organs," Cryobiology, 3, 252-260. Co-authored with V.P. Perry, T. I. Malinin, and G.H. Mouer.

 On July 3, 1952 Dodrill completed the first successful open heart surgery on the left ventricle of Henry Opitek. He used a machine developed by himself and researchers at General Motors, the Dodrill-GMR, considered to be the first operational mechanical heart used while performing open heart surgery.  With E. Hill and R. Gerisch. This paper, which was published in August, 1952, was Dodrill's first report on the operation. In October the team published a second report with a more precisely worded title: "Temporary mechanical substitute for the left ventricle in man," J. Am med. Assoc., 150 (1952) 642-644.

First really accurate description of the red blood corpuscles, which Swammerdam had noted in 1658.

The first analysis of blood, Boyle’s Memoirs may be considered the first scientific study in physiological chemistry, exhibiting methods which have become universally adopted. This is Boyle’s most important medical work.

Discovery of iron in the blood.

In papers 2 and 3 of this set of 3 contiguously published papers Hewson was the first to describe fibrinogen. "Before Hewson, although the fibrin mesh had been recognised and admired from as far back as Plato, it was thought that the secret of clotting lay in the red cells rather than the plasma. Hewson had ample opportunity to study coagulation; so common was the practice of ‘cupping’. He saw it clot as he beat it with a glass rod, thought that clotting was accelerated when blood came in contact with air (a theory disproved by John Hunter who showed that it could occur in a vacuum) and postulated that the its secret lay in the ‘coagulable lymph’ as he described plasma, making him the first to describe fibrinogen" (Derek Doyle, "William Hewson (1739-74): the father of haematology", British Journal of Haematology, April 2006.

Wells showed that the coloring matter in the blood was not iron but a complex organic substance subsequently identified as hematin.

Announces the discovery of the blood platelets.

Buchanan extracted the fibrin ferment of blood. He showed that it was capable of coagulating blood and other serous fluids not in themselves coagulable.

Reichert obtained hemoglobin crystals in the guinea pig. Digital facsimile from ECHO at this link.

Discovery of hemoglobin. (Title of second paper: Neue Beobachtungen tiber die Krystalle des Milzvenen – und Fisch-Blutes).

Vierordt was the first to devise an exact method of enumerating the red blood corpuscles. See also his later paper: Zählungen der Blutkörperchen des Menschen, in the same volume, pp. 326-31.

Welcker was the first to determine the total blood volume and the volume of the normal red blood cells. Earlier paper in Vjschr. prakt. Heilk., 1854, 44, 63.

Using the spectroscope, Hoppe-Seyler discovered the absorption spectrum of blood. See No. 873.

In his Croonian Lecture Lister exploded the theory that blood coagulation is due to ammonia and showed that, in the blood vessels, it depends upon their injury. He further showed that by carrying out the strictest precautions he could keep blood free from putrefaction indefinitely, thus supporting his theory that bacteria were the cause of wound suppuration.

Discovery that oxygen can be removed from hemoglobin by reducing agents.

Hoppe-Seyler obtained hemoglobin in crystalline form and made other important discoveries in hematology. See also No. 870.

See Frederic L. Holmes, "Crystals and carriers: The chemical and physiological identification of hemoglobin," In: No
truth except In the details. Essays in honor of Martin J. Klein. Edited By A. J. Kox & Daniel M. Siegel (1995) 191-244. 

Bizzozero demonstrated that erythropoiesis and leucopoiesis take place in the bone marrow.

Independently of Bizzozero (No. 873.1), Neumann showed that erythropoiesis and leucopoiesis take place in the bone marrow.

One of the best early descriptions of the blood platelets was given by Osler. He noticed that white thrombi were almost entirely composed of them.

In his thesis Malassez provided the initial description of the hemocytometer, which he invented, but which was named by Gowers, who modified it in 1877.  The trade issue of the thesis was published in Paris by Adrien Delahaye. See also Malassez's "Nouvelle méthode de numération des globules rouges et des globules blancs du sang", Arch. Physiol. norm. path., 2 sér., 1, (1874) 32-52. Digital facsimile of the 1873 trade edition from BnF Gallica at this link.

Investigating the mechanism of blood coagulation, Hammarsten showed it to be accomplished by the splitting up of fibrinogen into fibrin and other substances.

Gowers introduced the colorimetric method of estimating hemoglobin and devised a hemoglobinometer for the purpose. This was modified by Haldane (see No. 891). Previously Hoppe-Seyler had used a hematinometer.

First accurate counts of the blood platelets.

Foundation of the differential blood count technique.

Bizzozero gave the blood platelets their name and found that they play a part in blood coagulation. A German translation with additions is in Virchows Arch. path. Anat., 1882, 90, 261-332. The expanded German version was translated into English by Eugen A. Beck as On a new blood particle and its role in thrombosis and blood coagulation (Bern, 1982).

A method of determining blood volume with carbon monoxide.

Includes (pp. 614-751) an important account of chlorosis; Hayem, by his accurate observation, placed knowledge of the disease on a firm basis.

First demonstration of the essential role of calcium in the mechanism of blood coagulation.

Hedin’s hematocrit. He first briefly described it in Upsala läkPören. Förh., 1889, 24, 440. 

Includes description of “Howell’s bodies” seen in mature erythrocytes and called also “Howell–Jolly bodies” after the later description by J. M. J. Jolly.

Extension of Ehrlich’s work on the differential blood count. By means of his methods of staining blood cells Ehrlich differentiated two types of leukemia, lymphatic and myelogenous.

Schmidt established several new facts regarding blood coagulation.

Landsteiner discovered that human blood contains iso-agglutinins capable of agglutinating other human red blood cells. He divided human blood into three groups (A, B, and O, which he called A, B, C).  Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1930.

Tallqvist’s hemoglobin scale.

Haldane’s hemoglobinometer and method for determination of hemoglobin.

Sahli’s method for the determination of hemoglobin.

Following Landsteiner’s division of human blood into three groups (A, B and O which he named A, B, C), Decastello and Sturli discovered a fourth (the rarest) group, later named AB.

Morawitz’s theory of blood coagulation.

Reticulocytes described.

Janský demonstrated that blood could be classified into four groups; he named these O, A, B, and AB. His work, published in a little-known journal, was at first overlooked, and in 1910 Moss independently published work on exactly similar lines. A French résumé of the paper is in the above journal, pp. 131-33, and a German summary in Jb. Neurol. Psychiat., 1907, 1028.

Discovery of the role of the megakaryocytes in the formation of the blood platelets.

Proof that blood groups are inherited according to Mendelian laws.