Liotta-Hall Intracorporeal Heart Pump
date: label: date made
content: ca 1963
name: label: designer
content: Hall, C. William
label: designer
content: Liotta, Domingo
notes: label: Description
content: The ventricular assist device, or the intrathoracic bypass pump as it was originally named, was developed by a surgical research team led by Michael DeBakey (1908-2008), C. William Hall (1922-1992) and Domingo Liotta (1924-2022) at Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. The pneumatically powered pump is made of Silastic® and utilizes two ball-type valves to direct blood flow in one direction. It was the first bypass pump implanted in a human.
label: Description
content: Heart assist devices or ventricular assist devices (VAD’s) are used to provide circulatory assistance to a weakened heart. The device helps pump blood through the aortic valve and into the aorta supplying blood to the rest of the body.
label: Description
content: On July 19, 1963, Dr. Liotta and Dr. E. Stanley Crawford (1922-1992) implanted this intrathoracic bypass pump into a 42-year-old man who had undergone surgery to replace a diseased aortic valve. Hours later the patient suffered a cardiac arrest developing anuria (the decline of urine production) and fluid buildup (edema) in his lungs. Although the pump helped to relieve the edema the patients urine output never increased. The patient died four days after the pump was implanted.
label: Description
content: Doctors considered the pump and other new mechanical devices such as the pacemaker and artificial heart valves successful, but they discovered that supplementing and indeed replacing the natural heart would not be easy. Among the problems which they encountered included damage to blood cells and the rejection of the device by the body. In the end physicians concluded, due to its long term support capabilities and the increase of blood circulation, that an internal artificial pump was feasible.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Texas, Houston
topic: label: Subject
content: Artificial Organs
label: Subject
content: Cardiology
label: Subject
content: Surgery
label: Subject
content: Medicine
label: Subject
content: Artificial Organs
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Health & Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Artificial Hearts
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Liotta, Domingo. Assisted Circulation and Total Artificial Heart: Past and Present
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Baylor University
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-10837
label: catalog number
content: MG*M-10837
label: accession number
content: 256189
label: catalog number
content: M-10837
objectType: label: Object Name
content: intrathoracic pump
label: Object Name
content: cardiology
label: Object Name
content: pump, heart
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: dacron (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: salastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: silicone (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/8 in x 8 1/2 in x 3 1/2 in; 2.8575 cm x 21.59 cm x 8.89 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 cm x 3.2 cm x 28.5 cm; 4 11/32 in x 1 1/4 in x 11 7/32 in