To insert a catheter into a body part, usually a blood vessel or the bladder, for medical diagnosis or treatment.
From catheter (Greek katheter, from kathienai meaning 'to send down') plus -ize (from Greek -izein, 'to make or do'). The modern medical procedure developed in the 17th-18th centuries as tube technology improved.
The first successful heart catheterization in 1929 started when a doctor threaded a tube through his own arm vein up into his heart and walked downstairs to an X-ray machine—the ultimate self-experiment!
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