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(Circulation. 2009;119:2844-2853.)
© 2009 American Heart Association, Inc.

Historical Perspectives in Cardiology

Evolution of Cardiopulmonary Bypass

William S. Stoney, MD

From the Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.

Correspondence to William S. Stoney, MD, Emeritus Professor of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 3822 Brighton Rd, Nashville TN 37205. E-mail wsstoney@comcast.net

Key Words: bypass • history of medicine • cardiopulmonary bypass • extracorporeal circulation • perfusion • surgery

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

At the end of the Second World War, the devastation of many cities in Europe, combined with the problems of reconstruction and loss of financial support, had brought European medical research to a halt. On the other hand, in the United States the war brought about an enormous amount of scientific research through the development of nuclear weapons, the mass production of penicillin, early computers, and a variety of other technological advances, some of which were eventually put to use by medical investigators.

In the immediate postwar years, Congress began 3 decades of generous funding for medical research and education through the National Institutes of Health and the Public Health Service. In the 1920s and 1930s, medical research money had been scarce, but after the war there was a flood of money. The National Institutes of Health budget for medical research in 1945 was $180 000. By 1947, it was increased to $4 000 000, in 1950 to $46 000 000, and in 1974 to $1 billion.¹ By 2008, the total budget just for the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute was almost $3 billion.

Since colonial times, it had been customary for young American physicians to spend postgraduate time in Vienna, Berlin, London, or Paris. Now the opposite was true. It became important for a young European physician to have worked for a year or so in a US medical center. The world center for medical education and research had shifted from Europe to the United States.

Postwar medical progress . . . [Full Text of this Article]