| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM |  |
| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM | |
| $ 250 |
| First edition of Edler's and Hertz' paper on the use of ultrasonic refelctoscope for the continuous recording of the movements of heart walls. Echocardiography, from which the field of medical ultrasonics has developed. "In 1953, Inge Edler was in charge of the Cardiology Department at the University Hospital, Lund, Sweden and was in the position responsible for the preoperative diagnosis of heart disease. At that time, cardiac catheterization and contrast x-rays of the heart failed to give enough data for a correct appraisal of the status of the mitral valve. Since a correct diagnosis is of great importance before an operation, Edler felt strongly that the inadequacy of the existing methods. This concern caused him to look for a new non-invasive alternative which he thought might resemble some kind of a radar. At the same time Carl Hellmuth Hertz, the son of the famed Nobel Laureate Gustav Hertz, was working as a graduate student at the nuclear physics department of the University of Lund. Because of this interest, he also studied ultrasound. He was acquainted with the ultrasonic reflectoscope developed for nondestructive materials testing. An ultrasonic reflectoscope was borrowed from the Tekniska Röntgencentralen, a company in the nearby town of Malmö, which specialized in nondestructive testing. With the equipment, they were able to obtained well-defined echoes on the CRT screen moving synchronously with his heart beat. Since Hertz's father had been the director of the Siemens Research Laboratory before the end of the war, they were able to contact director Wolfgnag Gellinek of the Siemens Medical Branch in Erlangen, Germany, to borrow one of their Siemens reflectoscopes. Elder and Hertz received the reflectoscope in October 1953 and set to work on it immediately. Edler finally established the characteristic motion pattern for the anterior leaflet of the mitral valve. He compared the shape of the fast moving echoes in patients with enlarged hearts due to mitral stenosis during cardiac operations, and found empirically the shape correlated well with the severity of the stenosis. By early 1955, Edler had so much evidence of this relationship that he relied on ultrasound alone for the diagnosis of mitral stenosis. The typical motion patterns of other heart valves, pericarditis, tumors, and thrombosis in the left atrium showed up in their recordings and were identified by close cooperation with Dr. Olle Dahlbäck's heart surgery group. The advent of a barium titanate transducer produced by Siemens in Germany in 1958 was an important advance for the group and had enabled them to study not only the normal mitral valve but also many other heart structures" ..... "Edler's valuable work has been recognized internationally. He was voted Sweden's most important cardiologist of the 20th century. In 1977, Edler and Hertz were jointly awarded the Lasker Award. This is an award that was established in 1946 by Albert and Mary Lasker to honor persons who have made significant contributions in basic and clinical research. It is one of the most important awards in the world that recognizes scientific accomplishment. Edler was cited for pioneering the clinical application of ultrasound for the medical diagnosis of abnormalities of the heart. Hertz was cited for pioneering the development of ultrasound technology in medicine. Many awardees go on to win the Nobel Prize. While Edler and Hertz were not fortunate enough to do so, many felt that this was a major oversight by the Nobel awards committee"(www.ob-ultrasound.net). |
| * G-M 2883.01. |