Research notebook on synapse transmission, containing notes and computer programs, plus 3 other items
Publisher Information: 1969-1979.
Invention of the Self-Monitoring Pacemaker
Auerbach, Albert (d. 2005) (1) Synaptic transmission. Computer model parametric study. Volume containing autograph ms., computer printouts, graphs, etc., including numerous graphs mounted with clear tape. Approx. 200ff., in cloth binder, hand-lettered label on front cover. 280 x 219 mm. Some tape mountings detached. First leaf dated April 13, 1969. (2) (with M. V. L. Bennett) Chemically medicated transmission at a giant fiber synapse in the central nervous system of a vertebrate [and] A rectifying electronic synapse in the central nervous system of a vertebrate. Double offprint from J. General Physiology 53 (1969). 183-237pp. Text illustrations and graphs. 252 x 173 mm. Original printed wrappers. (3) The Medalert system. Gatefold brochure. [6]pp. Illustrated. New York: Medalert Corporation, 1972. 218 x 218 mm. (4) (with Seymour Furman) The autodiagnostic pacemaker. Offprint from Pace 2 (1979). [1, self-wrapper] 58-68pp. Text illustrations. 282 x 217 mm.
Book Id: 39547Albert Auerbach, a computer scientist, physiologist and entrepreneur, was the founder of Medalert, one of the first pacemaker-monitoring services. In 1946 Auerbach joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, where he designed the arithmetic circuit of the BINAC (the world's first commercially sold computer) and worked on the design of the UNIVAC. After more than a decade in the computer business, during which he founded his own company, the Digitronics Corp., Auerbach retired from the field to obtain a Ph.D. in biophysics at Columbia University.
From 1967 to 1972 Auerbach taught and researched electrical and chemical synapses at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1972 he founded the Medalert Corp., which he sold seven years later to Survival Technologies. Auerbach invented the first self-monitoring pacemaker, capable of detecting and correcting its failure to stimulate a heart adequately, for which he was granted the patent in 1978.
No. (1), Auerbach's research binder entitled "Synaptic transmission," includes several groups of Auerbach's research notes, with titles such as "Synaptic transmission model," "The mobility of synaptic vesicles," "Equilibrium calculation," "Electrical field in the terminal," "Diffusion of transmitter," etc. Also included are several printouts of computer programs measuring spikes in neurotransmitter release, as well as numerous graphs and a photograph titled "Figure 1. The morphological correlates of electrically and chemically mediated transmission." The photograph suggests that Auerbach was working here with nerve cells from frogs and the fish Sternopygas. Similar researches on synaptic transmission in the hatchetfish (Gasteropelecus) is described in (2). No. (3) is possibly the first printed brochure advertising Auerbach's Medalert Corporation; it describes Medalert's "centralized telephone screening service to facilitate the rapid entry of patients with symptoms suggestive of acute myocardial infarction into an optimal system of coronary care." No. (4), published the year after Auerbach received the patent for the self-monitoring pacemaker, describes his "autodiagnostic, self-correcting cardiac pacemaker . . . [which] acts as its own continuous monitor, providing an absolute recording of failure to pace."
.Price: $1,500.00