Daily Survival Guide

Today in Survival History
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On this day in 1958, Arne Larsson received the first pacemaker to ever be implanted into a human body. The first actual pacemaker was invented and built in 1950 by Dr. John Hopps, a member of the National Research Council of Canada, but his model was too large for human use. Dr. Rune Elmqvist improved Hopps' invention and developed a pacemaker sized for human tranplant. Dr. Ake Senning performed the surgery on Larsson, who needed the device to correct a slow heartbeat brought on by Strokes-Adams syndrome. There have since been several other successful pacemaker implants, including one in 1984 for Hopps' own heart.