15 Facts About Paul Zoll

Paul Maurice Zoll was a Jewish American cardiologist and one of the pioneers in the development of the artificial cardiac pacemaker and cardiac defibrillator.

Paul Zoll majored in psychology with aspirations of remaining in academics.

Paul Zoll's mother died during his last year of medical school.

Paul Zoll dissociated himself from his religious roots and never returned.

Paul Zoll then completed a one-year medical residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and returned to Beth Israel Hospital as a Macy Research Fellow to study the pathophysiology of coronary disease.

In World War II, Paul Zoll served as an army physician from 1941 to 1946.

Paul Zoll was deployed to the Aleutians and then to England, where he became Chief of Medicine at the 160th General Hospital that was designated for wounded military evacuees with chest injuries.

Paul Zoll removed bullets and shrapnel from in and around the hearts and great vessels of 138 soldiers without a fatality.

Paul Zoll remembered what he learned practicing in the military with Harken- that the hearts of the wounded contracted from the slightest stimulus during surgery.

Paul Zoll was helped by several colleagues who shared his goals and worked by his side.

Paul Zoll succeeded in preventing life-threatening disturbances of heart rhythm and in restoring effective heart action to victims about to die from sudden cardiac arrest.

Paul Zoll accomplished these feats with the application of indirect and direct electrical shocks that restored a life-sustaining heart rhythm.

Paul Zoll was a pioneer with a panoramic wide-angle view of his patient's needs gleaned from his office and bedside hospital practice.

Paul Zoll developed methods of applying electric shocks to the surface of the chest that stimulated the heart within.

The descendants of Paul Zoll's discoveries continue to evolve in the forms of alarmed cardiac monitors, pacemakers, and closed chest defibrillators.