Trivial Pursuit Question: What boon to cardiac patients was invented by Canada's
Wilfred Bigelow?
Answer: The pacemaker.
Like Erastus Bigelow in the following article,
Dr. Wilfred Gordon Bigelow (1592C.1653) is noted in Trivial Pursuit as an
inventor. Although his accomplishments in the medical field are many, he
is known first and foremost for his invention of the cardiac pacemaker, Wilfred
Gordon Bigelow, better known as "Bill," was born 18 June1913 atBrandon, MB,
the son of Dr. Wilfred Abram Bigelow and Grace Ann Carnegie Gordon. Wilfred
Abram was a pioneer horse and buggy doctor who combined general practice
and surgery in rural Manitoba. He is noted for the formation of Canada's
first private medical clinic, in Brandon in 1913. The Bigelow Clinic
served a large section of the West with distinction for half a century.
Bill Bigelow attended Brandon College and the University
of Toronto (B.A., 1935; M.D., 1938) and received his postgraduate training
at Toronto General Hospital and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
On 9 July 1941, he married M. Ruffi Jennings.
Bigelow, who was to become an eminent cardiovascular
surgeon, pioneered research on the physiological effects of lowering body
temperature and developed the techniques which were later to make possible
the first open-heart surgery in humans. He credits his curiosity and interest
in research to the example of his father. Dr. Wilfred Abram taught his children
an appreciation of the limits of scientific and medical knowledge. He
firmly believed that open-mindedness gives free rein to one's curiosity and
imagination.
Bigelow first became interested in hypothermia, or
the artificial reduction of body temperature to slow metabolic processes,
in 1941. As a resident surgeon at Toronto General Hospital, he had to amputate
the frostbitten fingers of a man from the Canadian northwoods. In preparing
for the operation, he was amazed to find how little had been written on the
subject. He expressed his concern to a professor who suggested that
perhaps Bigelow should do something to redress the problem. That challenge
hit home, and eighteen years of absorbing research in that area were to follow.
During the Second World War, Dr. Bigelow served four
and a half years overseas, working in English hospitals and then a casualty
clearing station in Normandy. After the war, he trained as a vascular surgeon
at Johns Hopkins Hospital under Dr. Alfred Blalock, a pioneer in heart surgery
on "blue babies." This surgery was palliative; that is, the medical
problem was not
cured but a remarkable improvement in condition was brought about, allowing
the children to grow and develop.
Bigelow realized, as others had, that heart conditions
would never be cured until the circulation of blood through the heart could
be stopped during an operation. One night he awoke with a simple solution
cool the whole body, reduce the oxygen requirements, interrupt the circulation
and open the heart. This idea undoubtedly sprang from his previous interest
in hypothermia. He could hardly wait to return to Toronto General in 1947,
after completing his residency, to investigate the effects of general hypothermia
on the metabolism of the body. This was radical thinking for a fall in body
temperature at that time was considered dangerous and something to be avoided
at all costs.
For the next three years, Bigelow and a research
team concentrated on exploring the effects of hypothermia on animals. In 1949,
the first open-heart surgery was conducted on a dog whose body temperature
had been cooled to 200C. Bigelow and his team reported their findings
for the first time in a paper presented at the meeting of the American Surgical
Association in Colorado Springs in 1950. This report was to initiate a flurry
of hypothermia research around the world.
For the next fifteen years, Bigelow perfected surgical
techniques involving the use of hypothermia. Although his team
did not perform the first open-heart surgery on a human, it was through their
procedure that the operation was made possible. Flushed with the success
of having pioneered hypothermia but frustrated by its limitations in heart
surgery, Bigelow next turned his attention to research in hibernation. The
groundhog was chosen as a true hibernating animal whose body temperature varies
with its environment and may fall as low as 30C, and also because of its
size and unlimited supply in Ontario. To attempt as full a study as
possible, the only known groundhog farm in the world was set up at Collingwood,
ON. It housed as many as 400 groundhogs at one time. Hay was placed at the
bottom of 400 tubes; when the sleeping animals were needed, up they were
brought through trap doors. After ten years of fascinating research on the
mysteries of hibernation, Bigelow's team was forced to admit defeat.
The groundhog farm was closed and to this day the hibernators retain their
secret.
As is the case with many inventions, Dr. Bigelow
stumbled upon the idea for a cardiac pacemaker accidentally, during the course
of his hypothermia research. In 1949,
while performing a routine experiment upon a dog whose body temperature had
been cooled to 210C., the dog's heart unexpectedly stopped beating. Cardiac
massage did not restart it. In frustration, Bigelow poked it with a probe
he was holding which immediately produced a strong contraction. He poked
it again, with the same result. After some minutes with this stimulation,
the anaesthetist observed a blood pressure, indicating these were real contractions
forcibly expelling blood in a normal manner.
Thus Bigelow discovered that an outside, artificial
stimulant could get the heart to beat. He was fascinated by this idea. An
electrical impulse had the same effect as a prod. This was the
genesis of the first electrical pacemaker for the heart now used as a matter
of course in thousands of human patients around the world. A paper on the
subject was first presented at a Surgical Congress in Boston in October 1950.
The early pacemakers were external, with the first operation for an implant
occurring in Sweden in 1959. The introduction of the long-life, dependable
lithium battery revolutionized the pacemaker by 1975. Modern pacemakers are
now outfitted with a microchip programmed to automatically shock the heart
in the event of cardiac arrest. What an amazing advancement over a few short
decades!
Heart surgery was virtually nonexistent in 1946.
Anyone with heart disease, regardless of their age, would die because nothing
could be done for them. Because of Bigelow's research in hypothermia and
other corresponding developments, there was suddenly an explosion of surgery
on the heart in the 1950's, the golden decade of discovery in that area.
Dr. Bigelow was instrumental in the opening of a cardiovascular investigative
unit at Toronto General Hospital in 1956. The concrete block extension was
soon dubbed "Bigelow's Bungalow." This was followed in 1958 by the opening
of one of the most efficient cardiovascular surgical units on the continent,
of which Bigelow became the head. He also created one of the first university
programs to tram cardiovascular surgeons.
Since his retirement as professor of surgery in
Toronto, he has devoted his energy to writing and working to protect the
environment through the Nature Conservancy of Canada. He lives in Toronto
and Collingwood ON with his wife Ruth. They have four children, one daughter
and three sons.
Sources:
W G. Bigelow, Cold Hearts, Toronto. McClelland and Stewart, 1984;
newspaper clippings; biographical dictionaries.
Clippings submitted by Betty Watson, Port Elgin ON and Lois Mattson, Edmonton
AB.
Related Forge articles.' July 1990, April 1991.
Other books by W G. Bigelow.' Forceps, Fin and Feather, Toronto: 1969.
Mysterious Heparin, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1990.
Rod Bigelow
Box 13 Chazy Lake 
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
