Automated cell counting: Wallace H. Coulter

The development of automated cell counting was a major breakthrough which changes the practice of laboratory hematology. Wallace H. Coulter (1913-98) was an American electrical engineer, inventor and businessman. He studied electronics at Georgia Tech in early 1930s. The best known of his 85 patents is the “Coulter principle”, which provides a method for counting and sizing microscopic particles suspended in fluid. The instrument for automatic counting blood cells is known as the Coulter counter. This device counts more than 6000 cells   per second. His invention of the Coulter made possible today’s most common medical diagnostic test: the complete blood count, or full blood cells. Coulter counters have evolved, so that accurate differential white cell counts, platelets count, and reticulocyte counts can be provided automatically in seconds.