When his sister-in-law was diagnosed with heart disease, aviator Charles
Lindbergh helped develop this "glass heart" - a pump in
1936, made from Pyrex glass,
intended to sustain organs removed from the body for study or
transplantation. He and Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon Alexis Carrel
kept hearts, kidneys, ovaries, and other organs alive for appreciable
lengths of time. |
Lindbergh-Carrel
Perfusion Pump
National Museum of
American History
Smithsonian Institution |
