Correspondence, C. Walton Lillehei to Paul Zoll regarding pacemakers
Dublin Core
Title
Correspondence, C. Walton Lillehei to Paul Zoll regarding pacemakers
Subject
Open Heart Surgery
Description
Paul Zoll of Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, developed external cardiac pacing.
Creator
C. Walton Lillehei
Source
"Z, 1953-1966," Box 100, C. Walton Lillehei papers, uarc2000-7, University of Minnesota Archives
Publisher
University of Minnesota
Date
26-Feb-58
Contributor
Paul M. Zoll
Rights
Use of this image is governed by U.S. and international copyright laws. Image is property of the University of Minnesota. Please contact the University of Minnesota Archives for permission to publish this image. https://special.lib.umn.edu/uarch
Format
Document
Language
eng
Identifier
oh0287
Coverage
Open Heart Surgery
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
February 26, 1958
Paul M. Zoll, M.D.
Medical Research Department
Beth Israel Hospital
330 Brookline Avenue
Boston 15, Massachusetts
Dear Doctor Zoll:
It was a pleasure to hear from you and certainly we have found your
extensive work in cardiac resuscitation techniques extremely valuable to
us. In regard to complete heart block, we did find rather early that the
external electrodes were completely intolerable to surgical patients es-
pecially children. Isuprel, of course, proved very helpful but was not
dependable enough. The technique of inserting a myocardial electrode with
a very low current amperage then required has proven extremely satisfactory
and the death rate from complete heart block has fallen from 50% to vir-
tually 0 in our surgical group. This has had a very important influence
on the overall mortality of open heart surgery of septal defects.
I do not as yet have any reprints available. We have made reference
to the technique in several publications but the first complete description
was given last fall at the American College of Surgeons Meeting and is con-
tained in Volume 8 of the Surgical Forum. There is also a paper due to
appear soon in Circulation Research outlining the experimental basis which
preceeded the clinical application. In our own unit, I believe that this
technique has saved approximately 30 lives in the last one year and others
who have adopted it have reported to me similar gratifying experiences.
I heard recently from Dr. Burchell that you will be in this area soon
and do hope that you have an opportunity to stop at the University Hospitals
and perhaps make rounds with us if time permits. We usually have at least
one patient on the pacemaker but of course this varies from time to time.
With best regards,
Most sincerely yours,
C. Walton Lillehei, M.D.
CWL:bl
Paul M. Zoll, M.D.
Medical Research Department
Beth Israel Hospital
330 Brookline Avenue
Boston 15, Massachusetts
Dear Doctor Zoll:
It was a pleasure to hear from you and certainly we have found your
extensive work in cardiac resuscitation techniques extremely valuable to
us. In regard to complete heart block, we did find rather early that the
external electrodes were completely intolerable to surgical patients es-
pecially children. Isuprel, of course, proved very helpful but was not
dependable enough. The technique of inserting a myocardial electrode with
a very low current amperage then required has proven extremely satisfactory
and the death rate from complete heart block has fallen from 50% to vir-
tually 0 in our surgical group. This has had a very important influence
on the overall mortality of open heart surgery of septal defects.
I do not as yet have any reprints available. We have made reference
to the technique in several publications but the first complete description
was given last fall at the American College of Surgeons Meeting and is con-
tained in Volume 8 of the Surgical Forum. There is also a paper due to
appear soon in Circulation Research outlining the experimental basis which
preceeded the clinical application. In our own unit, I believe that this
technique has saved approximately 30 lives in the last one year and others
who have adopted it have reported to me similar gratifying experiences.
I heard recently from Dr. Burchell that you will be in this area soon
and do hope that you have an opportunity to stop at the University Hospitals
and perhaps make rounds with us if time permits. We usually have at least
one patient on the pacemaker but of course this varies from time to time.
With best regards,
Most sincerely yours,
C. Walton Lillehei, M.D.
CWL:bl
Original Format
Paper
Citation
C. Walton Lillehei, “Correspondence, C. Walton Lillehei to Paul Zoll regarding pacemakers,” Gallery, accessed November 8, 2026, https://gallerytemp.reclaim.hosting/items/show/3283.