1960's Medicine and Health | Heart Surgery: the Artificial Heart

Early Attempts.

Heart donors are scarce, and recipients often do not have the luxury of time. To facilitate the process of heart transplantation, there was a concerted effort during the 1960s to develop an artificial heart for temporary use in bridging the time gap between a patient's need and the availability of a donor or as an assisting device for people whose hearts are not fully functional. Early experiments involved the use of a plastic banana-shaped device with internal valves to assist the blood in its movement from one heart chamber to another. A large pump outside the body provided the force. Dr. Michael E. DeBakey used such a device, which he called an intrathoracic pump, on a forty-two-year-old patient in 1963, but the patient died four days later, and there was some indication that the pump had caused blood clots.

An Improved Model.

Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz of Brooklyn's Maimonides Hospital codeveloped...