John Gibbon and His Heart-Lung Machine

Ada Romaine-Davis

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary Collection
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780812230734, 9780812230734
• eBook ISBN: 9781512806359
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medicine Biographies

John Heysham Gibbon, Jr., M.D., was the first researcher to develop a heart-lung machine that could fully support an adult's cardiac and respiratory functions during surgical procedures to repair defects in the heart and lungs. The difficulty of such a task can be seen in the number of people who attempted it for over a century: the list is long. Gibbon succeeded on May 6, 1953, when he repaired an atrial-septal defect with the patient supported entirely by the machine for 27 minutes.Ada Romaine-Davis contends that few realize how long Gibbon worked to achieve this success. To rectify the situation, Romaine-Davis here provides a thorough study of Gibbon and his accomplishment. She shows how Gibbon overcame discouragement from his peers and mentors and obtained crucial support from IBM Board Chairman Thomas Watson. She examines each of the models produced by Gibbon and puts his achievement into historical perspective. Gibbon himself chose not to pursue cardiac surgery; he remained a thoracic surgeon. Others went on to develop the knowledge and skills that today make open-heart surgery as safe as other major surgical procedures. As Romaine-Davis amply demonstrates, these pioneers stand on the shoulders of a stubborn, persevering, single-minded genius whose determination to leave a legacy to his profession resulted in the one thing essential for sustained progress in heart surgery: John Gibbon's heart-lung machine.This meticulously researched study will make fascinating reading for physicians—especially surgeons—as well as for students and scholars of medical history and science and technology.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Plates
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments and Permissions
• Preface
• Birth and Early Years
• The 1930s–Significant Years
• JHG the Inventor
• The 1940s–Model I
• The 1950s–Model II
• Bypass Surgery in Humans
• Model III
• The Mayo Clinic
• The Mid-1950s to the 1970s
• Support for Medical Research–1930 to 1955
• In Support of Animal Experimentation
• Impact of the Heart-Lung Machine
• Slimming Up: JHG the Man
• Afterword
• Notes
• Glossary
• Appendix
• Laboratory Experiments, 1931 – 1938
• Bibliography
• Index