Werner Forssmann

Physician, born in Berlin, Germany. He studied at Berlin University, was an army doctor until 1945, then practised at various places, becoming chief of surgery at Dresden-Friedrichstadt, and at Dusseldorf in 1958. He became known for his development of new techniques in heart surgery, including cardiac catheterization, in which he carried out dangerous experiments on himself. He shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Werner Forssmann, (August 29, 1904 – June 1, 1979) was a physician from Eberswalde, Germany. In 1929, he made an incision into his antecubital vein and fed a catheter into the right atrium of his own heart. He then walked to the radiology department, where he had a x-ray taken showing the catheter in his heart. Although he was fired from the hospital for this, he received his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 for his pioneering feat into cardiological studies.