Heart Operation Televised

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28702, 27 September 1958, Page 10

Heart Operation Televised

DUSSELDORF. Doctors at a congress here watched on television a surgeon perform a heart operation within three and a half minutes. A scientific newsletter described the operation carried out by Professor Ernst Derra, the Director of the Surgical Clinic of the Dusseldorf Medical Academy. The operation, which corrected a defect on the septum which separates the two auricles, took place while the heart was still beating but circulation had been stopped. The operation, the newsletter said, had become possible through hypothermal narcosis and a heart-lung machine. After the chest of the patient had been opened and the heart been cooled by hypothermal narcosis, it took Professor Derra 210 seconds to open the pericardium, put holding strings to the right auricle, prepare the large vessels to be pinched off, make the necessary injections, pinch off the vessels, open the auricle, sew up the defect on the septum, open the blood passage again, and sew up the pericardium. Professor De.ia said, “I do everything as simply as possible.” and added smilingly, “the organisation behind this, however, is not seen by anyone.” The hypothermal narcosis brings the body of the patient to a temperature of 29 to 39 degrees centigrade (about 46 to 48 Fahrenheit) in eight and a half minutes. In Dusseldorf the patient is put on a rubber mattress through which sub-cooled water SSL*®- covered by a sheet