Development of the Heart-Lung Machine

The heart-lung machine, or cardiopulmonary bypass pump, is a device operated by a cardiac perfusionist that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during open-heart surgery, maintaining circulation of oxygenated blood through the body while the heart itself is stopped. Early prototypes date to Austrian-German physiologist Maximilian von Frey's 1885 device at the University of Leipzig, but a workable machine was not practical until the discovery of the anticoagulant heparin in 1916, and Soviet scientist Sergei Brukhonenko demonstrated an animal heart-lung apparatus called the Autojektor in 1926. The first human attempt, by Clarence Dennis at the University of Minnesota on April 5, 1951, did not save the patient but proved the concept, and the first successful human open-heart operation using the machine was performed by John Gibbon and Frank F. Allbritten Jr. on May 6, 1953, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, before John W. Kirklin's team at the Mayo Clinic refined the device into a reliable instrument through the mid-1950s.