Overview

One of the most important advances in cardiac medicine in the twentieth century was the invention of the heart-lung machine. Scientists knew that delicate heart surgery was impossible without a console to take over the function of the human heart and lungs, but few deemed it possible. After decades of trial and error, John "Jack" H. Gibbon successfully tested the first human heart-lung machine in 1953, fueling the visions of his peers and ushering in a new era of open-heart surgery. Today, the heart-lung machine is an indispensable device that has extended the bounds of operative treatment beyond the most imaginative dreams.

Background

From the earliest days of medicine until the mid-1900s, tampering with the heart was considered taboo. For centuries, people regarded the human...