Dr. Morton Mower, a cardiologist who helped invent an automatic implantable defibrillator that has helped countless heart patients live longer and healthier has died
Mower and Dr. Michel Mirowski, both colleagues at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, began working in 1969 on developing a miniature defibrillator that could be implanted into a patient. The device would correct a patient’s over-rapid or inefficient heartbeat with an electric shock to resume its regular rhythm.
The physicians had, in a matter of months, a model of an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator for demonstration. But it wasn’t until 1980 that the device was implanted into a human at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the newspaper reported. “I think Morty had as much influence successfully finding a treatment for sudden death as anyone in our profession,” said Dr. David Cannom, a retired Los Angeles cardiologist and longtime friend.
Mower, a Baltimore native who grew up in Frederick, attended Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He worked at Baltimore hospitals and served in the Army before beginning his professional career at Sinai in 1966 as a co-investigator of its Coronary Drug Project. He was chief or acting chief of cardiology at the hospital for several years in the 1970s and 1980s. Sinai Hospital named a medical office building for him in 2005.