Werner Forssmann, German physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)
Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann (Forssmann in English; German pronunciation: [ˈvɛʁnɐ ˈfɔʁsˌman] (listen); 29 August 1904 – 1 June 1979) was a physician from Germany who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine (with Andre Frederic Cournand and Dickinson W. Richards) for developing a procedure that allowed cardiac catheterization. In 1929, he put himself under local anesthesia and inserted a catheter into a vein of his arm. Not knowing if the catheter might pierce a vein, he put his life at risk. Forssmann was nevertheless successful; he safely passed the catheter into his heart.