Wilhelm His

science · 29 December 1863 · 161 years ago

birth Born 29 Dec 1863; died 10 Nov 1934 at age 70.
Swiss cardiologist who in 1893 fully described a group of modified muscle fibres (known as the bundle of His) forming part of the impulse-conducting system of the heart. (It was first noted in 1892 by Stanley Kent.) It runs as a single bundle from the atrioventricular node (between the atria and ventricles) then branches into pathways to the right and left ventricles. It relays an electrical impulse, establishing a single rhythm of contraction through the heart. He was among the first to recognize that the heartbeat originates in the individual cells of heart muscle. During WW I, His served as an advisory internist with several armies. In 1916 he described Trench Fever in Volhynia in Russia. His father of the same name was a famous anatomist.

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