https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865 ... h-him.htmlSister Nelson spoke of the advances in medicine President Nelson made as a young doctor, specifically his work in developing the heart-lung machine that helped support the first open-heart operation on a human being in 1951.
“To become the successful surgeon he was to become and to do what had never been done before, he actually had to defy the very books from which he studied,” Sister Nelson said. “His medical textbook read, ‘do not touch the beating heart.’”
Even one of the most famous surgeons of that time proclaimed that any surgeon that attempted to operate on the heart would lose all credibility within the medical profession.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/107/17/2168In the late 1940s, continuing his work on several different versions of the ever-improving heart-lung machine, he contacted the IBM Corporation to collaborate on manufacturing the possible first human version. This occurred because one of his medical students had been very friendly with Thomas Watson, who was then the Chairman of the Board of IBM. IBM worked with him in developing Model I of the heart-lung machine. Though relatively successful in extensive experimentation in animals,8 it was ineffective in supporting the total cardiopulmonary bypass system in volumes large enough to support a human being. Many notable peripheral events related to cardiac surgical techniques and technologies occurred during those 23 years of research. He had to decipher every aspect of artificial circulation we now take for granted: how to drain the blood from the body, how to pump it back, how to clear air from the inside of the heart, how to anticoagulate successfully without clotting the machinery, etc.
After the first IBM model failed to work as well as he had hoped, Dr Gibbon developed a second model in his own laboratory, which was the successful machine that eventually allowed human bypass operations. The final design of Model II (Figure) developed in the early 1950s9 consisted of a screen oxygenator, which allowed blood on both sides of the screen mesh to interface with oxygen, and three roller pumps modified from Dr Michael DeBakey’s original transfusion pump design10 to pump the blood back into the body. The disassembling, cleansing, and sterilization of nondisposable equipment were, of course, critical and laborious parts of the research project.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/pione ... rgery.htmlHEART-LUNG MACHINES
The dream of building a machine to take over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery had existed before World War II. Early prototypes, built by pioneers like Dr. John Gibbon in Great Britain, were cumbersome and dangerous—often leaking blood, damaging blood cells and causing air embolisms. It wasn't until 1958, when a system that involved bubbling blood was perfected, that "heart-lung" machines came of age. Dr. Dennis Melrose of London further increased chances for success when he pioneered an injection that stopped the heart from beating during surgery.
http://www.understandinganimalresearch. ... g-machine/In 1953 John Gibbon realised his 20-year vision and performed the first successful operation on a human using the heart-lung machine. The patient, Cecelia Bavolek, whose heart was connected to the machine for 45 minutes, recovered fully from the operation. However, the technique still had a major flaw; the heart was left beating during surgery with some blood still reaching it, and this made it messy and difficult to operate on.
Now we get to the bottom of it...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiop ... ss#HistoryAn Austrian-German physiologist Maximilian von Frey constructed an early prototype of a heart-lung machine in 1885 at Carl Ludwig’s Physiological Institute of the University of Leipzig.[2] However, such machines were not feasible before the discovery of heparin in 1916 which prevents blood coagulation. A Soviet scientist Sergei Brukhonenko developed a heart-lung machine for total body perfusion in 1926 which was used in experiments with canines. Dr. Clarence Dennis led the team that conducted the first known operation involving open cardiotomy with temporary mechanical takeover of both heart and lung functions on April 5, 1951 at the University of Minnesota Hospital. The patient did not survive due to an unexpected complex congenital heart defect. This followed four years of laboratory experimentation with dogs with a unit called the Iron Heart. A team of scientists at Birmingham University (including Eric Charles, a Chemical Engineer) were among the pioneers of this technology.[3][4] Another member of the team was Dr. Russell M. Nelson, who performed the first open heart surgery in Utah.