2 Werner Forssmann: Shoved a catheter into his own heart

In 1929, heart surgery was still in its infancy, and physicians struggled to treat cardiac patients invasively. Werner Forssmann suspected that he could reach the heart by snaking a hollow tube through his patients' veins, but colleagues in Eberswald, Germany, told him that the procedure would undoubtedly prove fatal.



Forssmann begged to differ, and shoved a catheter into his own heart to prove it.

A nurse agreed to sneak him sterile supplies as long as he promised to perform the procedure on her instead of on himself. Forssmann agreed, anesthetized his nurse, and, in one of the greatest switcheroos in medical history, cut into his own arm and blindly guided the catheter into his heart. Triumphant and still alive, Forssmann hobbled down to the X-Ray lab to show off his handiwork.

Years later, after he promised never to knock out his nurse and perform surgery on himself ever, ever again, he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.