Biographical Memoirs Volume 48 (1976) / Chapter Skim
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Carl John Wiggers
Carl John Wiggers
Pages 362-398
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From page 363... ...
At the turn of the century, physiology was beginning its growth in this country as a science in its own right and as a discipline useful to medicine and surgery. The life and contributions of Carl John Wiggers coincide almost precisely with this period.
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From page 364... ...
Carl John Wiggers was born in Davenport, Iowa, on May 28, 1883. He was the first of two children; a younger sister died in childhood.
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From page 365... ...
His publications began while he was a medical student. In 1905 he described the action of adrenalin on the cerebral blood vessels and demonstrated his findings at the American Physiological Society meeting in Ann Arbor that same year.
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From page 366... ...
In later years a lifelong habit of hospitality and personal interest enlarged the social boundaries of the Wiggers family and home to include research fellows, junior staff members, colleagues, and visitors from other laboratories and countries. It is significant that in 1952 the affection of this larger family was expressed by their establishing at Western Reserve University a joint honor entitled "The Minerva and Carl Wiggers Annual Prize in Physiology." In 1907, during his first year as an Instructor, Wiggers was given the responsibility for a didactic and demonstration course in physiology for dental students, who had become seriously discontented with Professor Lombard's offerings.
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From page 367... ...
During this period Wiggers found that his studies were being limited by the unreliability of the pressure recorclers then available to physiologists. Professor Hewlett told him of the optical recording methods devised by Professor Otto Frank in Munich, and Wiggers promptly arranged, through Lombard, then in Europe, for a year of study abroad.
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From page 368... ...
These records, together with Otto Frank's studies of the central arterial pulse in the aorta, permitted comparisons of pressure levels in the lesser and greater arterial circulations. In 1917 he compared the timing of pressure changes in the heart chambers with the contractions of heart muscle and with the electrocardiogram.
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From page 369... ...
At this time, too, he became a member of a National Research Council Committee on Shock. Sir Thomas Lewis invited him to come abroad to share in a study of neurocirculatory asthenia, but he had to decline, chiefly because Graham Lusk was on leave for war research abroad, and again he was acting chairman of a department.
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R Macleod, then Professor of Physiology at Western Reserve, had decided to accept a position with the University of Toronto, and then urged him to consider accepting the vacant professorship beginning with the autumn term of 1918.
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From page 371... ...
. by aligning such a galvanometer with optical recorders for pressure, muscular contraction and heart sounds, the interrelations of electric and contractile events in the heart could be determined more accurately than before.
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From page 372... ...
Eventually eight phases were identified: isometric contraction, maximal ejection, reduced ejection, protodiastole, isometric relaxation, rapid inflow, diastasis, and atrial systole. The beginning and end of each phase was defined precisely by relevant simultaneous changes of blood pressure levels in the left ventricle, aorta, or atrium; by small, more detailed changes in the configuration of the pressure pulses; and by heart sounds.
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From page 373... ...
Hooker in exploring possible ways of restoring normal rhythm to hearts in which fibrillation had been produced by electric currents. Wiggers accepted, but with the cautious feeling that the most he "could hope for was some discovery that might reduce the mortality rate of experimental animals." His first approach was a screening study to explore chemical methods of restoring normal cardiac rhythm.
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From page 374... ...
As Wiggers expressed it, the problem became one of "extending the period during which countershock could be effective after development of fibrillation." Success in doing this was "not a matter of chance; it resulted from a logical application of observations from contemporaneous experiments...." These pointed to the conclusion "that the fibrillating ventricles lose their power of effective contraction after 2 or 3 minutes, because they are deprived of oxygenated blood. The remedy apparently needed was a supply of oxygen for the myocardium before application of countershock." In 1936 Wiggers suggested that gentle manual rhythmic compression of the ventricles be started as quickly as possible to raise arterial blood pressure and to restore blood flow through the coronary vessels in the heart muscle.
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From page 375... ...
His interest in abnormalities such as valvular lesions, arteriosclerosis, and hemorrhage can be traced back to his instructor days at Michigan, and especially to his hours on the wards of Bellevue Hospital, in New York. His experiments were sometimes analytic—e.g., central and peripheral pulse wave forms, factors determining coronary blood flow, accuracy of blood pressure measurement in animals and man—and sometimes integrative—e.g., his classification of stages in severe hemorrhage and ensuing shock.
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From page 376... ...
By 1953 his alumni included a score of professors of physiology or heads of closely affiliated research laboratories. Among these were research centers, almost as eminent as the parent one, in special topics such as coronary blood flow, membrane action potentials in cardiac muscle, peripheral resistance to regional blood flow, clinical electrocardiography, hemorrhage, and shock.
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From page 377... ...
The American Heart Association had adopted a policy of increasing support for basic research and found it timely to publish a new journal that could emphasize a multidisciplinary approach to fundamental studies of the cardiovascular system. Wiggers was asked to organize and edit this new journal, Circulation Research, with the first issue scheduled for 1953.
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From page 378... ...
Because Wiggers had many interests in both physiology and medicine, his memberships in scientific societies included a number in each category, with service as officer in many. His earliest and longest loyalty went to the American Physiological Society, where, in annual meetings for fifty years, he was a dependable source of lively discussion and admonitions to young and old investigators, delivered over his ever-present cigar and with a friendly humor to temper any incisive criticism.
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From page 379... ...
These included annual gatherings during meetings of the American Physiological Society and special testimonial dinners in Cleveland celebrating his twentieth and twenty-fifth years there and his emeritus year, when his portrait was presented to Western Reserve Medical School. The Circulation Group of the American Physiological Society grants annually to an outstanding physiologist its "Carl I
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Robert M Berne for providing the following bibliography prepared from departmental records at Western Reserve University.
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From page 381... ...
Bull. = Western Reserve University School of Medicine Clinical Bulletin 19~05 Action of adrenalin on the cerebral vessels.
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From page 382... ...
I The pressure variations in the pulmonary circulation of the dog studied by a new pulse pressure instrument.
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From page 383... ...
I The intraauricular, intraventricular and aortic pressure curves in auricular fibrillations.
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1919 Factors determining the relative intensities of the heart sounds in different auscultation areas.
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From page 385... ...
Studies on the consecutive phases of the cardiac cycle.
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From page 386... ...
1927 The interpretation of the intraventricular pressure curve on the basis of rapidly summated fractionate contractions.
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From page 387... ...
The harmonic analysis of intraventricular pressure curves.
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IV. Hemodynamic factors determining the characteristic changes in aortic and ventricular pressure pulses.
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From page 389... ...
I The coronary pressure pulses and their interpretation.
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From page 390... ...
Cardiac massage and countershock in revival of the mammalian ventricles from fibrillation due to coronary occlusion.
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Ventricular fibrillation due to single, localized induction and condenser shocks applied during the vulnerable phase of ventricular systole.
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From page 392... ...
Pinera. The effects of myocardial ischemia on the fibrillation threshold the mechanism of spontaneous ventricular fibrillation following coronary occlusion.
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From page 393... ...
The ineffectiveness of adrenal cortex extracts in standardized hemorrhagic shock.
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From page 394... ...
Limb blood flow and vascular resistance changes in dogs during hemorrhagic hypotension and shock.
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From page 395... ...
Bleeding volume and blood volume in hemorrhagic shock. Federation Proceedings, 6: 173-74.
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From page 396... ...
Res., 1:230-37. 1954 The interplay of coronary vascular resistance and myocardial compression in regulating coronary flow.
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From page 397... ...
Res., 4:4-7. lg58 Reminiscences and Adventures in Circulation Research.
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