It’s easy to pull an anniversary off of Wikipedia and make a simple ‘On This Day’ type list. On this day the first internal pacemaker was fitted in Sweden.

But it’s the humanity that makes any story like this interesting. I’m sure Arne Larsson, who was fitted with the pacemaker had a story other than his heart stopping 20-30 times a day - which must have left him willing to try an experimental surgery. I’m sure Rune Elmqvist and Åke Senning have stories worth telling too. And I’m sure they would have gotten around to implanting a pacemaker in a patient eventually.

But I’m centring this story on Arne’s wife Else-Marie who had read about Elmqvist and Senning’s work in a newspaper and knowing their research laboratory was nearby, simply turned up and demanded they make a device ready to implant in her husband. Thankfully they made two, as the first failed after just three hours. Which leads to an interesting discussion on the definition of failure and success.

Else-Marie’s insistent intervention saved her own husband, but may have saved more lives. It made me think of the idiom “necessity is the mother of invention”. Which is clearly true, except about Super Soakers and Nerf Guns where necessity was more of a third cousin once removed.

-Bill