The History of the Mechanical Heart 



By George B. Griffenhagen 



Acting Curator 



Division of Medicine and Public Health 



U. S. National Museum 



Smithsonian Institution 



and 



Calvin H. Hughes 



Research Biologist 



Industrial Hygiene Department 



Research Laboratories Division 



General Motors Corporation 



[With 4 plates] 



Can you imagine a machine that could operate 70 to 80 cycles per 

 minute, or about 42 million cycles per year, exerting a force of 5 to 10 

 tons each 24 hours, continually (without once stopping) for 50 to 100 

 years? Such an amazing machine is the human heart. It never 

 stops working from the time we are born until we die. It has been 

 estimated that the heart beats 3 billion times during the Biblical 

 life span of three score years and ten, pumping a total of 250 million 

 quarts of blood — almost enough to fill a large football stadium, and 

 exerting a total effort which, if it were all applied at once, could 

 lift the biggest battleship afloat 14 feet out of the water. 



The title of this paper might suggest that man has now been able 

 to create an artificial machine with the same fantastic properties and 

 capabilities as the human heart — a mechanical heart that might serve 

 as substitute for the real human organ. Medical science has succeeded 

 in developing a mechanical heart, but this machine thus far has been 

 able to perform the functions of the heart for only a very brief period 

 of time during cardiac surgery. The mechanical heart is nonetheless a 

 significant advance in medical science. 



Before anything was known about the real function of the human 

 heart, many types of unlikely characteristics were attributed to it. 

 It was held as the seat of all emotions, the center of love and hate, cour- 

 age and cowardice, sympathy and ruthlessness, virtue and vice. 

 Parted lovers, frustrated artists, and disappointed statesmen have 



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