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History of Defibrillation

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Cardiac Bioelectric Therapy

Abstract

History of cardiac defibrillation is characterized by a relatively long time-lag between the initial discovery of the phenomenon and its successful clinical application. It is also punctuated with gaps, where discoveries were set aside due to lack of scientific understanding, resource availability, etc. – to be repeated years later, after some new leap in understanding. Additional lags were incurred across the divide of the Iron Curtain, delaying the development of safe and portable defibrillation by a number of years. All these efforts combined with the understanding of the mechanisms of ventricular fibrillation and defibrillation eventually culminated in resuscitation successes of today.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Freelance Writer, Boston, MA, USA

    Hana Akselrod

  2. Mark Kroll & Associates, LLC, Crystal Bay, MN, USA

    Mark W. Kroll

  3. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Mark W. Kroll

  4. Steward St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center of Boston, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Michael V. Orlov

Authors
  1. Hana Akselrod
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  2. Mark W. Kroll
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  3. Michael V. Orlov
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael V. Orlov .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Igor R. Efimov

  2. National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Fu Siong Ng

  3. Philips EPD Solutions, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jacob I. Laughner

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Akselrod, H., Kroll, M.W., Orlov, M.V. (2021). History of Defibrillation. In: Efimov, I.R., Ng, F.S., Laughner, J.I. (eds) Cardiac Bioelectric Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63355-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63355-4_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-63354-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-63355-4

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