Gensini Gian Franco, Conti Andrea A, Lippi Donatella, Conti Antonio
Dipartimento di Area Critica Medico Chirurgica, Università degli Studi di Firenze.
Med Secoli. 2004;16(3):595-602.
In the XVIII century the first structured experiments in the field of bioelectricity were performed, and the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani documented the muscular contraction of a frog undergoing an electric shock. In 1791 he showed that the electric stimulation of the heart of a frog determined the contraction of the heart itself. In the first thirty years of the XIX century galvanometers were developed, and in 1842-42 Carlo Matteucci documented that electric activity was present even in the cardiac muscle at rest. At the end of the XIX century Augustus Waller was among the first scientists to publish an electrocardiographic recording obtained from the human body surface; most of his contemporaneous, however, did not retain that electrocardiography might have been an effective clinical application. Willem Einthoven, instead, was convinced of the widespread feasibility of clinical electrocardiography, and promoted a number of improvements and refinements in electrocardiographic technique. The most important and diagnostic-technical development of electrocardiography occurred in the second half of the XX century, and still today, even if many different sophisticated instrumental examinations are available for cardiologic evaluation, electrocardiography represents an essential first-line diagnostic tool in clinical cardiology.
18世纪，生物电领域进行了首批系统性实验，意大利科学家路易吉·伽伐尼记录了青蛙遭受电击时的肌肉收缩情况。1791年，他证明对青蛙心脏进行电刺激会引起心脏自身收缩。19世纪的头三十年，检流计得到了发展，1842年至1842年，卡洛·马泰乌奇记录到即使在静息状态的心肌中也存在电活动。19世纪末，奥古斯塔斯·沃勒是首批发表从人体体表获得的心电图记录的科学家之一；然而，他的大多数同代人并未意识到心电图可能会成为一种有效的临床应用手段。相反，威廉·艾因托芬坚信临床心电图检查具有广泛的可行性，并推动了心电图技术的多项改进与完善。心电图最重要的诊断技术发展发生在20世纪下半叶，即便如今有许多不同的精密仪器检查可用于心脏评估，但心电图仍是临床心脏病学中必不可少的一线诊断工具。
