History of Biomedical Engineering

생체의공학 개론김 태 성

경희대학교 생체의공학과

The Oldest Biomedical Device

Prosthetic toe from ancient Egypt

Origin

• World War II• Biologists needed to work advances on radar technology, = Biology + Technology

• Thus electronic developments in medicine• But biologists could not understand the principals of tech.• This gap needed to be filled • So, doctors and biologists got interested in engineering. Also electrical engineers interested in biology and medicine.

• Finally biomedical engineers and bioengineers were bone.

Major Milestones

• 1791: Luigi Galvani invented the frog galvanoscope.

Frog's-leg galvanoscope – measures voltage from skinned frog legs

• 1851: Hermann von Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope.

• 1881: Samuel von Basch invented the blood pressure meter

• 1895: Conrad Roentgen (Germany) discovered the X-ray using gas discharged tubes.

• 1901: Roentgen received the Nobel Prize for discovery of X-Rays.

First medical X-ray by Wilhelm Röntgen of his wife Anna Bertha Ludwig's hand

• 1903: Willem Einthoven invented the electrocardiogram (ECG).

ECG of a heart in normal sinus rhythm

An early commercial ECG device (1911)

• 1921: First formal training in biomedical engineering was started at Oswalt Institute for Physics in Medicine, Frankfurt, Germany.

• 1927: Invention of the Iron Lung (Drinker Respirator)

• 1929: Hans Berger invents the electroencephalogram (EEG).

The first human EEG recording obtained by Hans Berger in 1924. The upper tracing is EEG, and the lower is a 10 Hz timing signal.

• Mid 1930s – early 1940s: Antibiotics, sulfanilamide and pencillin reduced cross-infection in hospitals.

Penicillin

• 1940: Cardiac catheterization

• 1948: The first conference of Engineering in Medicine & Biology was held in the United States.

• 1950: Electron microscope.

Diagram of a transmission electron microscope

A modern transmission electron microscope

Neonatal cardiomyocytes

• 1950s: Electrical Stimulation

• 1950s – early 1960s: Nuclear medicine.

• 1960s: Ultrasound

• 1970: computer tomography (CT)

Modern CT scanner

• 1970: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Medical MRI

• 1980: Gamma camera, positron emission tomography (PET) and SPECT.

Gamma camera

positron emission tomography

• More advancement in Biomedical Engineering to come…