Werner Forssmann

Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann (Forssmann in English; 29 August 1904 – 1 June 1979) was a physician from Germany who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine (with Andre Cournand and Dickinson Richards) for developing a procedure that allowed for cardiac catheterization. In 1929, he put himself under local anesthesia and inserted a catheter into a vein of his arm. Not knowing if the catheter might pierce a vein, he put his life at risk. Forssmann was nevertheless successful; he safely passed the catheter into his heart.