The History of Dialysis: The Wonderful Apparatus of John Jacob Abel Called the “Artificial Kidney”

Abstract

Hemodialysis, which now provides life-saving therapy to millions of individuals, began as an exploratory attempt to sustain the lives of selected patients in the 1950s. That was a century after the formulation of the concept and determination of the laws governing dialysis. The first step in the translation of the laboratory principles of dialysis to living animals was the "vividiffusion" apparatus developed by John Jacob Abel (1859-1938), dubbed the "artificial kidney" in the August 11, 1913 issue of The Times of London reporting the demonstration of vividiffusion by Abel at University College. The detailed article in the January 18, 1914 of the New York Times, reproduced here, is based on the subsequent medical reports published by Abel et al. Tentative attempts of human dialysis in the decade that followed based on the vividiffusion apparatus of Abel and his materials (collodion, hirudin, and glass) met with failure and had to be abandoned. Practical dialysis became possible in the 1940s and thereafter after cellophane, heparin, and teflon became available. Abel worked in an age of great progress and experimental work in the basic sciences that laid the foundations of science-driven medicine. It was a "Heroic Age of Medicine," when medical discoveries and communicating them to the public were assuming increasing importance. This article provides the cultural, social, scientific, and medical background in which Abel worked, developed and reported his wonderful apparatus called the "artificial kidney."

HCI for health and wellbeing: Challenges and opportunities

“…Most people with chronic kidney disease need to be on dialysis for around 4 hours, at least three times a week, though more frequent dialysis is often recommended. The history of dialysis can be traced back to the mid-19 th century, when the laboratory principles underpinning dialysis were established (Eknoyan, 2009). The first "artificial kidney" was reported in 1913, but it took a further 30 years for dialysis to become a feasible medical procedure (Eknoyan, 2009).…”

“…The history of dialysis can be traced back to the mid-19 th century, when the laboratory principles underpinning dialysis were established (Eknoyan, 2009). The first "artificial kidney" was reported in 1913, but it took a further 30 years for dialysis to become a feasible medical procedure (Eknoyan, 2009). Kolff et al (1944) report on the design and use of the first known dialysis machine.…”

The Evolving View of Uremic Toxicity

“…They were able to remove substantial amounts of urea and other amino acid conjugates from the blood and performed basic chemical analyses to characterize some of these components [7]. In the same year, the New York Times described how blood could circulate through this machine, how coagulation could be overcome by using the anticoagulant, hirudoid, and reported that many substances could be eliminated from the blood [8]. Despite the wide acclaim, his device probably was not conceived as a therapy for uremic intoxication, and there is no written evidence of any clinical application of this apparatus in patients with end-stage kidney disease.…”

The Early Modern Kidney—Nephrology in and about the Nineteenth Century (Part 2)

“…Amongst the many contributors to the conceptual evolution of osmosis in the 19th century, two individuals stand out for the direct relevance of their work to the emergence of nephrology in the following century. One is the German physiologist Carl Ludwig (1816–1895), who based his filtration and reabsorption theory of kidney function on his own studies of osmosis, and the other is the Scottish chemist Thomas Graham (1805–1869), whose studies of urea diffusion across semipermeable membranes introduced the concept and term of dialysis, which in the following century led to the vivi‐diffusion apparatus of the American pharmacologist John Jacob Abel (1857–1938) that was termed an “artificial kidney” .…”