science · 12 December 1957 · 67 years ago
In 1957, the first total artificial heart implantation in an animal kept a dog alive for 90 minutes in a pioneering experiment at the Cleveland Clinic by Dr. Willem Kolff and Dr. Tetuzo Akutsu. Blood pumps for left and right circulation were implanted in the chest of a 20.7-kg dog, beating at the rate of 100 with an aortic pressure of 70/50 mm Hg. Akutsu was in Kolff's laboratory as a thoracic surgeon interested in cardiopulmonary bypass when Kolff asked him to make the device. The idea was prompted by an address by Dr. Peter F. Salisbury who had made, but not implanted, hydraulically activated twin pumps. Advice was contributed by Dr. Selwyn McCabe at the Mark Company, who had also fabricated an earlier artificial heart. Akutsu molded the four-chamber blood pump from “Tygo-Flex” PVC.
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