Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-12-04

Wnen modern nedTC surge
decade and a half ago, heart
saving of children with inhorr
Of business.
There were two reasons fol
this. The first was expressed by
a young University Of Minnesota
heart surgeon I met last sum-
mer:
I'm coronary disease, for ex-
ample, your patient is often neal
the end of the normal life span
You can't add too many years tc
his life. But when you have q
child-ah. you save q whole life
The second reason was the fact
that Unborn heart defects are
architectural understanding
is wrong with the way the heart
( is put together. Surgery is the
logical way to set such defects
right. In medical language. con-
genial heart disease is a "surgi-
zeal disease"
III Unborn Defects
q So modern heart surgery
started with the repair of inborr
heart defects. Actually. the first
heart operations were for defect;
Of the great vessels associated
with the heart-the pulmonary
artery and the aorta. the vesseI
that carries blood from the heart
to the body-rather than Of the
heart itself. 1t took the surgeons
a while to work up to the heart
The first man to find a prac-
tical way to correct an inborr
defect of the heart Of great
vessels was DR.. Robert E. Gross
of famed Boston Children's
Medical Centers. In 1899, DR.
Gross devised an operation fol
what doctors call patent ductus
arteriosus.
The ductus arteriosus is a pas
sage between the pulmonary
artery and the aorta. 1t by
passes blood around the lungs
before birth. when the lungs are
useless. If the ductus remains
opener patent-after birth, the
lungs blood vessels may be de-
stroyed, and the heart will be
carditis. a heart infection that IL
vulnerable to bacterial endo-
frequently fatal despite treat
ment with germ-killing anti
biotics.
DR.. Gross PDA operation has
brought new life to tens Of thou
sand Of children throughout the
world. The operation is safer
than most major abdominal op-
erations; fewer than one in zoe
fail to survive.
Across the Sea
The next great heart surgery
advance came across the sea, In
the operating room Of DR.. c
'Crafoord of Sweden. While the
rest Of the world was at war, DR.
Crafoord learned how to cut Out
"coarctations of the aorta"-
strangulated sections of the
aorta that deny vital blood to
the body. Repair Of coarcta.
tons is now done routinely in
hundreds of hospitals.
Now we come back across the
Atlantic. In 1916, DR.. Alfred
Blalock Of Johns Hopkins de-
vised his famous blue baby
operation-a procedure for get
ting more blood into the lungs
Of youngsters suffering from the
combination Of heart defects
known as the tetralogy of fallot
DR.. Blalock's operation does
not correct the tetralogy de-
fects: it relieves their worst
effects. Along with other pallia-
tive procedures, developed by DR.
Willis j. Potts of the University
Of Chicago and Sir Russell Brock
Of London, it is in the process
Of being superseded by a better
operation done with the aid of
heart surgery's latest triumph
the heart-lung machine Ito be
discussed in later article). But
the Blalock operation has helped
desperately sick children by the
hundreds.
Into Heart Proper
Heart surgeons finally made IL
into the heart proper few years
later. One important Unborn
within-the-heart defect they
learned to repair was what sur
geons call an atrial septal de-
fect-a hole in the wall between
the right and left auricles (the
heart chambers that receive ven
Gus blood.
In fact. several ways Of mend
ing atrial defects have been de-
vised. Surgeons are still unde-
cided which is best. but all are
ingenious. In one. originated by
DR.. Gross. a rubber well tall
enough TO catch the overflow OF