[Einthoven: the man and his invention]

Einthoven, a Dutch physician, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram. He was born on May 21, 1860, in Semarang, on the island of Java. In 1878 entered the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands, as a medical student, where he also became a keen sportsman. In 1885, he was appointed Professor of Physiology at the University of Leiden, where he began to work using first a capillary electrometer. Later, Einthoven invented a new galvanometer to generate electrocardiograms using a fine quartz string coated in silver and published his findings in 1901 and 1903. Einthoven is remembered by most of his colleagues and clinical peers as a very modest person who was hospitable and honest. He died at the age of sixty seven.