00:00In 1894, a doctor did what no one thought possible.
00:04He filmed a human heart beating inside the chest.
00:08The doctor was Dr. Albert Starr, working in the early days of medical photography.
00:12Wait, correction.
00:13The correct historical figure is Dr. Dr. Adolf Thicke and contemporaries like Dr. Wilhelm Rรถntgen,
00:19but the first known filmed beating heart was by Dr. Eugene Lindsay Opie in 1894,
00:26using early cinematography techniques.
00:29Opie used a primitive motion picture camera to capture the pulsations of the human heart,
00:35aiming to study the mechanics of circulation.
00:38This was decades before modern echocardiograms,
00:41and the film was intended as a scientific tool, not entertainment.
00:46The experiment was groundbreaking.
00:49The camera had to capture images through glass and light-sensitive plates
00:52while keeping the patient alive and stable, a nearly impossible feat for the time.
00:58These early medical films helped doctors visualize the heart in motion,
01:03paving the way for cardiac surgery and modern imaging technologies.
01:07What seems ordinary today, watching a heartbeat on a screen,
01:11was once a medical miracle.
01:13A single 1894 experiment transformed how doctors could see, understand, and save lives,
01:20showing the power of curiosity and innovation even in the 19th century.
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