20th Century Medical Technology Timeline

Vocabulary flashcards detailing key 20th-century medical technology inventions, inventors, dates, and functions based on the lecture notes.

Electrocardiograph (ECG)

A device invented by William Einthoven in 1903 that measures electrical changes during a heartbeat.

Kenny Method

A pioneering physical therapy for polio (infantile paralysis) created by Elizabeth Kenny in 1910, which led to the invention of the Sylvia stretcher in 1927.

Drinker Respirator (iron lung)

An invention created by Philip Drinker in 1927 that helped patients with paralytic anterior poliomyelitis breathe.

Heart-lung machine

A 1939 invention (actual credit usually given to John Gibbon, though textbook mislabels inventor as von Helmholz) that allowed open-heart surgery.

Cardiac catheterization & Angiography

A medical advance first done by Forssmann (1929), developed by Moniz, Reboul, Rousthoi (1930-40), and proven safe by Cournand (1941) for visualizing heart, lung vessels & valves via radiopaque dye + X-ray.

Electron microscope

An advance in 20th-century medical technology that enabled the visualization of small cells, including tumor cells.

Computers in medicine

A technological advance that led to tomography & MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

Prostheses

Artificial replacements developed in medicine, including artificial heart valves, artificial blood vessels, electromechanical limbs, and reconstructive joints.