News in ORbit

Just a hearf beafaway Doctors at Stanford Medical Center have demonstrated a tiny electronic device that could keep as many as 200,000 people from dying of heart attacks each year. The heartbeat of a patient was transmitted by telephone from Stanford to Manila and back via satellite, a distance of 51,000 miles and was recorded as accurately as a simultaneous electrocardiogram made directly from the patient. This proves, says Donald Harrison, MD, head of Stanford's Cardiology Department, that a patient wearing the device i s never out of touch with his doctor. (Hospital World)

Afomic hearf pump The first use of nuclear energy to power an artificial heart pump in a living animal was announced by the National Heart and lung Institute. Tested successfully on a calf, the devices might become available for use in humans by the end of this decade. Estimates of how many people might need

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them range from 15,000 to 100,000 a year. The device i s a long lived heart pacer (with a life of 10 to 12 years or longer) powered by an isotope of plutonium 238. The isotope i s surrounded by a thermo electric tape that converts heat to electricity that in turn sends impulses through special wiring to stimulate the heart.

(Hospital World)

LSD and gangrene Allan E. Inglis, MD, warns that the vasoconstrictive action of LSD on anyone with a hand infection may cause gangrene of the extremity. (Hospital Tribune)

Down with high blood pressure In a series of ten patients who failed to respond to drug therapy for hypertension, the use of electric stimulation of the carotid sinus nerves made a dramatic reduction in their blood pressure. (Hospital Tribune)

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