REVITALISING LINDBERGH

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4042, 2 May 1938, Page 6

REVITALISING LINDBERGH

FLIER’S ARTIFICIAL HEART. The most amazing* scientific item of the past few weeks is the cabled statement that Charles Lindbergh, famous American flier, is to have an artificial heart, made of rubber and metal, gratfed into his body by the celebrated surgeon, Alexis Carrel. This operation (it is said) may prolong Lindbergh’s life. It is difficult to believe the statement true. Some years ago Carrel succeeded in keeping an (anaesthetised) animal alive for some hours by short-circuiting the heart from the

circulation and keeping the latter • going’ by means of a rubber bag (alternately dilating and contracting) the power coming from a motor connected with the electric main.

A little later, Lindbergh, who makes a hobby of mechanical devices, joined Carrel and invented the “Lindbergh heart.” This is a rocking glass coil, working by electricity, which supplies a constant stream of nutrient material, plus oxygen, to any living organ with which it is connected.

Using this device, Carrel has been able to keep alive such an organ as the liver of an animal (removed after its death) for several weeks.

It is extremely unlikely that any operation of the first kind would succeed with a conscious human being. The heart-beat needs to constantly vary in order to cope with such everyday emergencies as change of posture, emotion, thought, muscular movement, temperature, or sleep. This is achieved in the human heart by an intricate system of nerves. No rub-ber-bag could take its place. Maybe the experiment is simply one of connecting* a mechanical heart (as an “extra”), with the human circulation. Such a device, if successful, might prolong life in heart disease. As a side-issue—knowing the life of the average hot-water bag—how long would a rubber heart last?