The first successful open-heart surgery took place in 1952.

On this day in 1952, a five-year-old girl who was born with a hole in her heart became the first patient to be treated successfully using open-heart surgery. Medical advances such as blood transfusions and improved anesthesia, developed in the treatment of soldiers during World War II, paved the way for the first heart surgeries.

By 1950, closed heart surgery, in which a small hole was cut into a beating heart, was a viable procedure. However, several heart conditions, including congenital heart disorders and damage from rheumatic fever, could not be corrected through a small hole in the heart. Unfortunately, doctors could not cut open a beating heart without the patient bleeding to death. Temporarily stopping the heart only allowed for four minutes in which to perform the surgery before the patient began to suffer from oxygen deprivation.

In 1950, Canadian surgeon Dr. Bill Bigelow noticed that hibernating animals could survive the extreme winters of Northern Canada by slowing down the beat of their heart. Intrigued by the relationship between cold and circulation, Bigelow performed experimental surgeries on animals in which he used extreme cold to slow down the heart, lessening the body's need for oxygen and extending the amount of time possible for performing surgery. On this day in 1952, two surgeons from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Walton Lillehei and Dr. John Lewis, successfully used Bigelow's techniques, known as the hypothermic approach, on a human. Using a special blanket, they brought her body temperature down to 81 degrees F, clamped the inflow to her heart to empty it of blood and corrected several small defects.

For the first time, a human had successfully been treated by open-heart surgery. Lewis, Lillehei and their colleagues went on to develop the "heart-lung" technique of maintaining oxygen in the bloodstream while the heart is shut down. Modern open-heart surgeries continue to rely on an improved heart-lung technique.

Illuminations
The Beat of Your Heart (Pre–K–8) emphasizes the connections between science and mathematics by exploring applications involving the heart. Students collect, organize, interpret and graph data; make comparisons and predictions; and draw conclusions from the data they collect.

Cardiac Output, Rates of Change, and Accumulation (9–12) explores the measurement of the amount of blood being pumped by a heart. Students explore rates of change and accumulation in context, by examining heart rates and blood flow in a series of activities.

Science NetLinks
In Heart 1: Transplant (9–12), the first of a two-part series on heart health, students use the Internet to learn about the workings and anatomy of the heart and about new medical techniques that help people live longer, healthier lives. This knowledge is then applied in a discussion of controversial issues surrounding heart transplants. Students also perform an online heart transplant to get a more realistic idea of what is involved.

In the second lesson of the series, Heart 2: Changing Lifestyles and Heart Health (9–12), students examine and evaluate changes in diet and lifestyle from prehistoric to modern times and then explore how these differences have spurred the development (and better treatment) of heart disease. They then use their knowledge in a debate between students representing hunter-gatherers and modern students.

In the Science Update Gum and Heart Disease (6–12), Microbiologist Ann Progulske-Fox discusses the link between gum disease and heart disease.

EconEdLink
Rationing Transplants: An Ethical Problem (9–12) uses the example of liver transplants to address the economic concept of scarcity and to provide students with practice in applying their decision-making skills.

ReadWriteThink
The Heart: The Questions and Answers Book for Kids is among the books recommended for use with the ReadWriteThink lesson Question and Answer Books—From Genre Study to Report Writing (3–5).