1. Hearing aids
- Miller Reese Hutchison (1876–1944)
Miller Reese Hutchison invented them in 1902, and soon after his fantastic innovation, the U.S. started changing the entire world. He was an inventor and electrical engineer from Alabama and responsible for developing the first electronic hearing aid.
Hutchison wasn’t a doctor, but he grew an interest in the medical field, especially in the ear’s anatomy, to help his childhood friend who was deaf. His attempts to create the perfect electronic hearing aid date back to 1895, when he invented something called the “akouphone,” but his first invention was too bulky and impractical.
So, after only seven years, the American Miller Reese Hutchison was recognized as the inventor of hearing aids.
2. Cardiac defibrillators
- William B. Kouwenhoven (1886–1975)
Another significant medical innovation of the 20th century was cardiac defibrillators. They were invented by William B. Kouwenhoven, a.k.a, the “Father of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation,” an engineering professor and researcher. Although he created the cardiac defibrillator back in 1930, his invention saved the life of a human being for the first in the 1950s
Since then, due to his ingenuity and efforts, millions of lives have been saved. However, his genius mind wouldn’t have been able to create this astonishing invention all by itself. An entire team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University helped him to prevent ventricular fibrillation in a dog’s heart in 1933 with electricity.
Nowadays, many people worldwide rely on cardiac defibrillators, which wouldn’t have been possible without these genius minds.
1 thought on “10 American Inventors That Changed the World”
The semiconductor or “chip” is the basis of several of these …. that is the invention that cause so much change. It in my opinion was the greatest invention of the last half of the 20th century.