Rotating Screen Oxygenator
date: label: date made
content: 1951
name: label: maker
content: Clarence Dennis
notes: label: Description
content: The oxygenator in a heart-lung machine exposes the patient’s blood to oxygen and removes the carbon dioxide. The rotating screen oxygenator was developed in 1947 by Clarence Dennis (1909-2005) and colleagues at the University of Minnesota General Hospital, with funding support from the N.I.H. Dr. Dennis moved to the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951, and introduced a modified version of the machine in 1955. The oxygenator in the Museum collections is a rebuilt version of that machine.
label: Description
content: Ref: C. Dennis, “A heart-lung machine for open-heart operations. How it came about,” Transactions of the American Society for Artificial Organs 35 (1989): 767-77.
label: Description
content: “Clarence Dennis, Builder of Machine Crucial to Heart Surgery, Dies at 96,” New York Times (July 20, 2005), p. A21.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Minnesota, Minneapolis
topic: label: Subject
content: Artificial Organs
label: Subject
content: Surgery
label: Subject
content: Medicine
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: Shummacker, Harris B., Jr.. The Evolution of Cardiac Surgery
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Edwards Lifesciences, LLC
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2002.0151.02
label: accession number
content: 2002.0151
label: catalog number
content: 2002.0151.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: heart-lung machine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plexiglass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 95 cm x 99 cm x 61.6 cm; 37 13/32 in x 38 31/32 in x 24 1/4 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: poly bag: 3 1/2 in x 7 3/4 in x 8 3/4 in; 8.89 cm x 19.685 cm x 22.225 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 34 1/2 in x 39 13/16 in x 26 3/4 in; 87.63 cm x 101.12375 cm x 67.945 cm