Capsule endoscopy, approved in the early 2000s, uses a device the size of a large pill containing a camera, a light, a battery and a transmitter. Once swallowed, it travels through the digestive tract for several hours, taking tens of thousands of images sent to a recorder worn on a belt. It lets doctors explore the small intestine, which is hard to reach otherwise, and is then passed naturally.
In 1843, inventor Alexander Bain patented a way to send images over telegraph wires using synchronized pendulums. By the 1860s, a commercial fax service was already linking cities. The telephone wasn't patented until 1876, more than three decades after that first fax patent. The fax is really a child of the telegraph age.
On 8 October 1958, in Stockholm, 43-year-old Arne Larsson received the very first implanted pacemaker. The device, designed by engineer Rune Elmqvist and implanted by surgeon Åke Senning, worked for only a few hours and had to be replaced. Larsson went on to receive more than twenty pacemakers in his lifetime. He died in 2001 aged 86, outliving both the engineer and the surgeon.