A Canadian surgeon, Bigelow was stationed in England during World War II. He dealt with many soldiers who suffered frostbite and hypothermia, and observed that their lower body temperatures resulted in a decreased metabolism — and a resulting decrease in the need for oxygen.
He not only devised effective treatments for frostbite, he also applied his observations to his chosen post-war specialty: heart surgery. He realized that induced hypothermia would help patients survive open heart surgery — and it did, despite predictions from other doctors that it would backfire. His interest in heart problems then led him to invent another device in 1950: the cardiac pacemaker.
But it took nearly a decade — and the invention of sufficiently small and reliable transistors — to make the device practical. The first pacemaker was implanted in a human in 1959. Dr. Bigelow died in Toronto on March 27 — from heart failure. He was 91.