The first cardiac catheterization on a living person. Forssmann catheterized his own heart. Historical note by N. Howard-Jones, Bull. Hist. Med.,1973, 47,524-6. English translation in Callahan, Keys & Key, Classics of Cardiology, Vol. 3, 250-55.

In 1956 Forssmann shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cournand (No. 2871) and Richards (No. 2883.2) "for their discoveries concerning heart catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system."

Translated into English by Hilary Davies as Experiments on myself. Memoirs of a surgeon in Germany (London: St. Martin's Press, 1974).