The Czechoslovak Contribution

Ivan Ruttkay-Nedecky^a, Ljuba Bacharova^b

^aInstitute of Normal and Pathological Physiology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
^bInternational Laser Centre, Bratislava, Slovakia

Correspondence: I Ruttkay-Nedecky, Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology SAV, Sienkiewiczova 1, 813 71 Bratislava, Slovak Republic. E-mail: ruttkay@unpf.savba.sk, phone +421.2.5292 6271, fax +421.2.5296 8516

The cradle of the International Society of Electrocardiology was in Central Europe. Professor of Pathophysiology, Hugon Kowarzyk and his wife, Professor of Cardiology, Zofia Kowarzykowa, organized in Wroclaw an international. Symposium on Spatial Vectorcardiography (October 21–24, 1959) and invited the Director of the Institute Solvay of Physiology (Free University of Brussels), Professor Pierre Rijlant to preside the meeting. It was there that the demand to create “an international body for mutual exchange of ideas and experiences, standardization of methods and technical improvement" for the study of cardiac electric field was first articulated [Rijlant, 1961].

Next year, an international Course on Spatial Vectorcardiography was held again in Wroclaw by Kowarzyks, at the Institute of Pathophysiology of the Wroclaw Medical Academy. At this occasion it was realized that it would be necessary to organize yearly meetings of workers interested in this field, in order to recruit a valuable membership for a future Society. It was agreed to name them Colloquia Vectorcardiographica and to held them alternatively in neighboring countries, in order to enable sufficient participation in spite of the „iron curtain“.

The next two colloquia were held on the frontier between Poland and Czechoslovakia, in the High Tatra Mountains: in Stary Smokovec, on the Slovak side in 1961 [Kowarzyk, 1963], organized by one of the attendants of the Wroclaw Course Ivan Ruttkay-Nedecký (with the aid of the Section of Biological and Medical Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) and subsequently in 1962 in Zakopane, on the Polish side, organized by Hugon and Zofia Kowarzyk (sponsored by the Polish Academy of Sciences).

The research on the cardiac electric field was initiated in Czechoslovakia by the renowned Czech physiologist Vilém Laufberger in 1952, when he presented at a meeting of the Czechoslovak Physiological Society in Prague his method of spatiocardiography, consisting of a horizontal vectorcardiogram with electronically attached third vertical lines, obtained by individually corrected orthogonal leads [Lauberger, 1964; Laufberger, 1970].

Professor of physiology at Charles University and Vice-President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Laufberger (1890–1986) had shifted his scientific interests to the human cardiac electric field with a very strong accent on instrumental development and computer aided diagnostic applications at the age of 62 years, after having achieved important results in evolutionary physiology by inducing metamorphosis in the axolotl by administration of desiccated cattle thyroid glands, in molecular biology, by his discovery of the iron bounding molecule ferritin, as well as in neurophysiology, by his researches on the physiological bases of mental activity, anticipating neurocybernetics. In his Laboratory of Graphical Methods of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, completed by a small hospital ward, he succeeded in attracting and leading an interdisciplinary team of first grade researchers. It was quite natural, that when he took with his coworkers a very active part in the scientific program of the 2^nd Colloquium vectorcardiographicum in Starý Smokovec, his personality and continuing keen interest helped very much in fostering of our international collaboration.

Laufberger took the task to organize the 4^th Colloquium in 1963 at the Castle of Liblice near Prague, where he invited also Rijlant and Koechlin. The following 5^th Colloquium took place again in Czechoslovakia, co-organized by Kowarzyk, Laufberger and Ruttkay-Nedecký, in the frames of the 4^th European Congress of Cardiology, which was held in Prague (August 16–22, 1964). It was again, like that of the Wroclaw Symposium in 1959, attended by a representative group of cardiologists, interested in vectorcardiography.

The Colloquia gave an impetus to electrocardiologic research also in Bratislava, particularly at the Institutes of Normal and Pathological Physiology and of Measurement Theory of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of Medical Bionics, belonging to the Ministry of Health, and at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University.

The 7^th Colloquium, organized in 1966 by Ruttkay-Nedecky with the aid of the Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences at the Castle of Smolenice near Bratislava, was for the first time attended by participants from overseas, from U.S.A. (O. Schmitt, D. A. Brody, R. McFee, R. Plonsey, H. Gelertner, H. Blackburn, J. P. Boineau, M. S. Spach) and Japan (T. Sano)

At this occasion an international Program Committee was formed with P. Rijlant (Brussels) as chairman and H. Abel, (Wiesbaden), R. Z. Amirov (Moscow), V. Laufberger (Prague), R. Koechlin (Paris), H. and Z. Kowarzyk (Wroclaw), I. Ruttkay-Nedecký (Bratislava), E. Schubert (Leipzig), B. Taccardi (Milan ) and R. Wenger (Vienna) as members [Ruttkay-Nedecky, 1970]. Its main task was to find the place of the future meeting and its organizer, who then became automatically a member of the Committee. The Committee was presided by Rijlant until the end of his life in 1983.

Regular meetings of colloquium participants led to many personal friendships and to a sense of solidarity. Hubert Pipberger gave his VAH program at disposal to the Institute of Medical Bionics in Bratislava, on their request. They then made use of it in large scale preventive health surveys in several factories and institutions.

Another important manifestation of solidarity was manifested in 1970 when in the very strained political situation of Czechoslovakia the existence of Laufberger’s Laboratory was menaced. An International conference was convened by Ruttkay-Nedecky to the Castle of Smolenice to celebrate his 80^th birthday and attended by a representative sample of scientists from both sides of the „iron curtain“ (Rijlant, Koechlin, Courtois, Akulinichev, Dolabjan, Titomir, Schubert, Schwarze, Kowarzyk, Jagielski, a. o.). This manifestation of international solidarity contributed to the nullity of the menace. Laufberger was also elected Honorary President of the International Council on Electrocardiology at its meeting in Tokyo at the occasion of the 9^th Congress in 1982.

In the course of following years, the Colloquia became transformed into Congresses. The first Congress held in Czechoslovakia was the 10^th one, organized in 1983 by Ruttkay-Nedecký in Bratislava and presided by Laufberger. A few months prior to this event, Pierre Rijlant passed away. At that time, the Program Committee decided on transforming the Committee into the International Council on Electrocardiology. It was agreed that a President will be elected for a term of two years and replaced thereafter automatically by a President Elect. For the first term they elected by secret vote Ruttkay-Nedecký to serve as President and van Dam as President Elect. Macfarlane was confirmed in his function as Permanent Secretary [Ruttkay-Nedecky and Macfarlane, 1984].

The uninterrupted activity of the Council in the course of following years led at the 20^th Congress in Kananaskis (1993) to the constitution of the International Society of Electrocardiology [Ruttkay-Nedecky and Macfarlane, 1994]. At this meeting Ljuba Bachárová was elected to be a member of the Council and in 1995 at 22^nd Congress in Nijmegen by secret voting to become President Elect of the International Society of Electrocardiology. Two years later, in 1997 she organized the 24^th Congress, the first one in the Slovak Republic [Bacharova and Macfarlane, 1998].

References

Bachárová L, Macfarlane P, Editors. Electrocardiology ´97. World Scientific Publishers, Singapore, 1998.

Kowarzyk H, Editor. Probleme der Räumlichen Vektorkardiographie. VEDA, Bratislava, 1963.

Laufberger V. Spatiocardiography. Textbook and Atlas. Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, 1964.

Laufberger V. History of Spaciocardiography, in Sources and surface representation of the cardiac electric field. Ruttkay-Nedecký I, Editor. VEDA, Bratislava, 1970, 423 - 425.

Rijlant P. A farewell address, in Spatial vectorcardiography. Kowarzyk H and Z, Editors. Polish State Medical Publishers, Warszawa, 1961, 364 - 366.

Ruttkay-Nedecký I. Preface, in Sources and surface representation of the cardiac electric field. Ruttkay-Nedecký I, Editor. VEDA, Bratislava, 1970, 9 – 10.

Ruttkay-Nedecký I, Macfarlane P, Editors. Electrocardiology´83. Excerpta Medica, Amsterdam, 1984.

Ruttkay-Nedecký I, Macfarlane PW. The history of the International Congresses of Electrocardiology, in Electrocardiology ´93. Macfarlane PW, Rautaharju P, Editors. World Scientific Publishers, Singapore 1994, 10 - 20