1885 M. von Frey and M. Gruber (Leipzig) build and use the first artificial heart-lung apparatus for organ perfusion studies. Their device relies on a thin film of blood and included heating and cooling chambers, manometers, and sampling outlets, which permits monitoring of temperature, pressure, and blood gases during perfusion. |
1903 Dutch physician and physiologist Willem Einthoven develops the first electrocardiograph machine. |
1927 Harvard medical researcher Philip Drinker, assisted by Louis Agassiz Shaw, devises the first modern practical respirator using an iron box and two vacuum cleaners. |
1931 Albert S. Hyman, a practitioner cardiologist in New York City, invents an artificial pacemaker to resuscitate patients whose hearts have stopped. |
1940's Military doctors develop techniques to cut into the wall of a beating heart and remove shrapnel. Partial correction (palliation) of "blue babies" is initiated. |
1951 Charles Hufnagel, a professor of experimental surgery at Georgetown University, develops an artificial heart valve and performs the first artificial valve implantation surgery in a human patient the following year. |
1953 J. Gibbon, Jr. (Philadelphia) performs first successful clinical use of the heart-lung machine for cardiac surgery (closure of atrial septal defect). |
1955 First meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs is held at the Hotel Chelsea in Atlantic City, New Jersey with 67 founding members. |
1956 G. Clowes (Cleveland) develops the first successful membrane oxygenator—by 1960s further laboratory research studying function and improvement of membrane lungs is undertaken by Kolobow, Peirce, Galletti, Bramson and Hill, Landé and Lillehei, Drinker and Bartlett. |
1957 W.J. Kolff, T. Akutsu and their research team (Cleveland) successfully implants a hydraulic, polyvinyl chloride total artificial heart in a dog, keeping the animal alive for 90 minutes. |
1962 Cimino and Brescia develop the subcutaneous arterio-venous shunt for chronic hemodialysis. |
1972 J.D. Hill, T.G. O'Brien and others (San Francisco) report first successful clinical case using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for respiratory failure. |
1972 Computerized axial tomography, popularly known as CAT or CT scan, is introduced as the most important development in medical filming since the X ray some seventy-five years earlier. |
1981 The first commercial MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner arrives on the medical market. |
1982 First permanent artificial heart implant, with Twin Cities Heart and Lung surgeon Dr. Joyce as part of the surgical team. |
Mid 1990's Stabilizers developed and cardiac surgeons are reintroduced to beating-heart and other less invasive surgical techniques. |
Late 1990's Robotics appear as experimental procedures. |
2000+ Beating-heart surgery recognized as a valid and beneficial approach. First clinical use of robotic devices. |
