SALEM — A Swampscott cardiologist has donated his collection of antique pacemakers for display at Salem Hospital.
Dr. Lawrence Block joined Lynn’s North Shore Medical Group in 1987, where he worked with Dr. Stephen Trachtenberg, one of the first cardiologists on the North Shore to implant pacemakers in patients. The devices were introduced in 1960.
“Since 1960, pacemakers have become immensely smarter and more sophisticated,” Block said. “They have gone from being the size of a hockey puck, to something that resembles a double-stuff Oreo cookie and today, save millions of lives around the world every year.”
Block, who now works at North Shore Physicians Group, said that Trachtenberg would save the devices that he removed from patients, sterilize them and keep them in a shoe box. The older models were removed more often than modern ones, as their batteries did not last as long.
When Trachtenberg retired, he passed the collection, which included pieces from 1964 to 1990, on to Block, who continued to add to it.
“I saved many that I removed through the 1990s, and by the year 2000, I had enough devices that I thought I should mount, label, and hang them,” Block said.
He explained that since their introduction, the technology in pacemakers has improved significantly.
“Initially, the pacemaker had a single wire which went through a vein into the right ventricle,” Block said. “By 1990, two-wire systems were developed where one wire went into the atrium as well, enabling coordination of the upper and lower chambers and improving the heart’s pumping function. Later, the devices became rate-responsive, detecting patient activity and increasing the heart rate automatically. And today the batteries last up to 10 years or more.”
The collection of historic devices will be displayed in the Pacemaker Clinic at Salem Hospital.
Dr. Michael Katcher, director of cardiac electrophysiology and pacing at Salem Hospital, said the hospital has seen the improvements made by modern technology in pacemakers and defibrillators, and that the antique collection is a good reminder of those improvements.
“We have put in several thousand pacemakers and defibrillators at Salem Hospital and several times each month someone is resuscitated by their defibrillator,” Katcher said. “I want the community to appreciate how far Salem Hospital has come in the field of electrophysiology since the early years, and to know that we are on the cutting edge of these technologies.”
