The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1956
Awarded on: 1956-10-18
"for their discoveries concerning heart catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system"
Affiliations:
- Mainz University – Mainz, Germany
Werner Forssmann
Born: 1904-08-29 in Berlin, Germany
Gender: male
Field: German physician, Nobel prize winner (1904–1979)
Biography
Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann was a German researcher and physician from Germany who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing a procedure that allowed cardiac catheterization. In 1929, he put himself under local anesthesia and inserted a catheter into a vein of his arm. Not knowing if the catheter might pierce a vein, he put his life at risk. Forssmann was nevertheless successful; he safely passed the catheter into his heart.