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Inventor for the Heart
| Article
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10212 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1993 |
2,715 Words |
| Author
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Elizabeth J. Sherman
Elizabeth J. Sherman is editor of the Biographical Memoirs of
the National Academy of Sciences. |
David C. Auth is an ingenious--and immensely practical--inventor. A professor of laser physics and electrical engineering, he holds more than a hundred patents for new medical technology. His laser scalpel, which makes tiny incisions and cauterizes as it cuts, is now standard for bloodless surgery. His endoscopic coagulators have rescued many patients from life-threatening internal bleeding. His new Rotablator(registered)--a diamond-tipped drill that polishes away arterial plaque--is transforming the treatment of cardiovascular disease.
"I always knew I wanted to be an inventor," says Auth, as if his was a trade you could train for like medicine or law. And for him, it was. "Those who are inventors want to be inventors. They are driven by knowing what a great satisfaction it is to be first."
PASSIONATE CURIOSITY
Auth grew up in Akron, Ohio, surrounded by machines and tools. His father, a factory worker and inveterate tinkerer, encouraged the boy to dabble in his workshop.
"When I was four," remembers Auth, "my dad brought me a steel roll-up tape and said, 'Hey, son, look at this! You can bend this thing around corners and it won't break.' A piece of steel that could be bent and manipulated? This was a scientific curiosity, and I couldn't leave it alone. I just had to test it to find out how far it would bend."
By age fifteen, Auth was devoted to building gas-driven model airplanes from scratch. Thirty-seven years later, he reflects on how useful that experience was, "To make model airplanes, I had to find out about building materials and play around with designs. It is a hobby rich in technology, altogether a lush environment for developing the skills of engineering and invention."
Throughout his school years, Auth fed a hungry passion for science and math, although he was on the swimming and tennis teams. "I wore glasses and rarely dated," concedes the inventor, today an athletic fifty-two. "I was totally committed to science. I was fascinated with the magnificence of being an inventor--a person who can hugely affect the flow of life--and I have never had cause to regret it.
"When I graduated from high school I was determined to go into engineering, but my principal took a hard stand, and I went into physics instead." Academic standards
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