The Lewis A. Conner Memorial Lecture

Abstract

AM GREATLY honored to have been selected to give the Lewis A. Conner Lecture before this association. I propose to discuss in this lecture some of the unsolved problems that have arisen from the use of extracorporeal blood circuits, a field in which I have long been interested. Twenty-four years ago at the Massachusetts General Hospital, we constructed an artificial heart-lung apparatus that was capable of maintaining the eardiorespiratory functions of cats for more than 4 hours with the pulmonary artery completely occluded.' A few years later, continuing this work at the Harrison Department of Surgical Research at the University of Pennsylvania, we were able to carry the entire cardiorespiratory functions of cats for as long as 26 minutes with prolonged healthy survival of the animals.2 World War II interrupted our work in this field, but it was resumed at the conclusion of the war. Six years were then spent in further experimental work in animals, with increasingly long periods of total bypass of the heart and lungs with survival,3-5, a decreasing mortality rate, and successful experiments in which atrial6 and ventricular7 septal defects were created and closed. There followed on May 6, 1953, the first successful open-heart operation on a human being in which the entire cardiorespiratory functions were maintained by an extracorporeal eirculationi.8 The heart and lungs were bypassed for 26 minutes while a large atrial septal defect was closed with sutures under direct vision. The patient, an 18-year-old girl, is now, 5 years later, healthy and leading a normal life. Today, as