PERSPECTIVE
Telemedicine
One hundred years of telemedicine: does this new technology have a place in paediatrics?
North Tyneside General Hospital, North Shields, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
E M Strehle
North Tyneside General Hospital, Rake Lane, North Shields NE29 8NH, UK; strehle@doctors.org.uk
100 years of telemedicine
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Although hard to believe, this year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of telemedicine. The term telemedicine was coined in the 1970s by the American Thomas Bird and, literally translated, means "healing at a distance" (from Latin "medicus" and Greek "tele"). However, the origins of this evolving technology date back to the early 20th century, when Willem Einthoven, a Dutch physiologist, developed the first electrocardiograph in his laboratory in Leiden. With the use of a string galvanometer and telephone wires, he recorded the electrical cardiac signals of patients in a hospital 1
km away. He stated: "Where there is a link, actual and figurative, between laboratory and hospital, and collaboration between physiologist and clinician, each remaining master in his territory, there one may fruitfully utilize these new electrical methods of research". Einthoven’s electrocardiograph was very large but over the years was transformed into a mobile or even portable monitoring device.
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