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Ann Thorac Surg 2007;83:349-353
© 2007 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Our Surgical Heritage

Critical Role of Physiologist John A. Johnson in the Origins of Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Pacemaker Industry

Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland

^_* Address correspondence to Dr Gott, 618 Blalock Building, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD 21205 (Email: vgott{at}csurg.jhmi.jhu.edu).

Complete heart block developed in more than 10% of C. Walton Lillehei’s early patients undergoing closure of ventricular septal defects, and hospital mortality was 100% in this group of patients. This problem of early fatality from heart block was completely eliminated with the use of a myocardial electrode in combination with an external plug-in electric stimulator. This method of treatment, suggested by Dr John A. Johnson, a professor of physiology at the University of Minnesota, was first used by Dr Lillehei on January 30, 1957. The next 3 years would witness the development of a portable, external, battery-powered pacemaker, and then an implantable pacemaker available for thousands of patients susceptible to lethal Stokes-Adams attacks. Fifty years have passed, and in 2005, approximately 800,000 pacemakers were implanted worldwide.