Blood damage in prolonged extra-corporeal circulation.

The first open-heart operation involving the use of an artificial heart-lung machine was performed by Gibbon (1954). However, this concept of artificial maintenance of the cardio-respiratory function had been considered over a century before. In 1812 Legallois stated "If one could substitute for the heart a kind of injection of arterial blood either natural or artificially made, one would succeed easily in maintaining alive indefinitely any part of the body whatsoever." Commencing with the development of in vitro perfusion of isolated organs by physiologists such as Starling (1925), work in this field led gradually to the design of blood pumps and artificial oxygenators capable of supporting the entire circulation