Werner Forssmann

Werner Forßmann, (August 29, 1904 – June 1, 1979) was a physician from Germany. He is credited with the first catheterization of a human heart. In 1929, while working in Eberswalde, he made an incision into his arm and fed a urinary catheter into the right atrium of his own heart. He then walked down a flight of stairs to the radiology department, where he had an X-ray taken showing the catheter in his heart. Although he was later fired from another hospital for this, he received his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956 for his pioneering feat into cardiological studies.

Forßmann was born in Berlin. He studied medicine at the University of Berlin, graduating in 1929.