The History of ECG Electrodes and Heart Monitoring

When someone first mentions ECG electrodes, the term may seem foreign to you. ECG is the acronym for the term electrocardiogram. People have become more aware of ECG as a test they undergo to determine if they are being affected by any sort of heart disease. The testing is designed to make visual record of the heart's electrical activities and is typically graphed on a strip of cardiac chart paper.


This procedure has been utilized for over a century and has gone through a multiple design changes before it was able to successfully read the electrical activities of a human heart. Augustus Waller was one of the pioneers in discovering that the heart had the ability to generate electricity, and shortly thereafter he began viewing the heart from a more "electrical" point of view.

Waller was not actually credited for designing the device used to read the human heart's electrical activity; this was accomplished by Thomas Goswell. Goswell invented the capillary electrometer which Waller used to publish the very first electrocardiogram of a human heart’s activities in 1887.

1893 was the year that the term "electrocardiogram" became known. It was during the Dutch Medical Association Conference that Willem Einthoven of the Netherlands introduced the term and it subsequently saw worldwide use. During his research, Einthoven made important modifications to the Goswell design that was utilized by Waller. Einthoven introduced a galvanometer fashioned from fine quartz strings that were coated with silver. The newer design of his ECG performed much better than the original electrocardiogram model and in 1924 Einthoven was awarded a Nobel Prize in physiology for this discovery and success.

There is much history behind the ECG device and the electrodes used to gather the information that it graphs. This evolution required several upgrades and advancements to become what it is today. Having the ability to monitor a person’s heart activity was a lifesaving discovery a century ago and it has now become a necessary device within the medical field of cardiology. ECG electrodes and the machines used in the cardiac medical field will undoubtedly progress through many more developments, but thanks to these early pioneers in the discovery of the heart's electrical attributes, we have a century of research to stand on.