ON THIS DAY

October 8, 1958

A Swedish doctor successfully implanted the world’s first pacemaker, a Canadian invention. In 1949, electrical engineer John A. Hopps of Winnipeg had devised a prototype of the machine alongside Dr. Wilfred Bigelow and Dr. John Callaghan at the Banting

Institute in Toronto. That first machine had to be plugged into a wall outlet and provided electric

shocks to the heart through a wire inserted in the jugular vein. Today’s pacemakers are implanted right in the patient’s

body.