Dr. Blalock and his team who were working on shock at Vanderbilt, labored to create different physical conditions in dogs. In 1938, he conducted one experiment in which the left subclavian artery was joined (anastomosed) to the left pulmonary artery in an effort to produce pulmonary hypertension. The experiment failed and was put aside.
Years later Dr. Blalock was to return to the idea.
An article about the appointment of Dr. Blalock. The Baltimore Evening Sun, December 26, 1940.
In 1941 Alfred Blalock returned to Hopkins to
assume dual appointments as surgeon-in-chief of the hospital, and professor and director of the department of surgery of the medical school, positions he was to hold
until his retirement in 1964.
Alfred Blalock lecturing at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
from the Olive Berger papers of The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives
Over the next few years, the shunt technique was developed further at Hopkins. It was used as a means of bypassing an obstruction (coarctation) of the aorta.
It was while Blalock was discussing his work on coarctation that Dr. Helen Taussig presented to him the problem of the blue-baby in relation to some sort of arterial shunt that would furnish more blood to the lungs.
Later Dr. Blalock wrote, "Vivien Thomas, my superb technician, and I performed many experiments with this end in view." Vivien Thomas said, "Our first attack on the problem was to try to form in an animal a 'blue-baby syndrome' in order that we could work out a procedure for correction."
The 'syndrome' is the tetralogy of Fallot, which consists of a hole in the wall between the heart's two major chambers (ventricles), an elarged right ventricle, a defective pulmonary valve that prevents full flow of blood to the lung, and cyanosis. Cyanosis is indicated outwardly by blueness and caused by the lung's inability to oxygenate sufficient blood for the system.
The first operation on a patient occurred on November 29, 1944. First assistant in that operation was William P. Longmire, Resident Surgeon. In 1965 he recalled,
I must say my enthusiasm for the idea completely disintegrated when I saw the frail cyanotic infant in the oxygen tent on the east ward of Harriet Lane 4. At that time Dr. Blalock spoke briefly with the parents (and indicated again the serious nature of the operation). It seemed to me from the way he greeted them that they had discussed the operation prior to the child's admission to the hospital....At the time of the first operation we lacked all of the modern vascular intstruments and real ly had little but the Professor's determination to carry us through the procedure. The child had extensive collateral vessels full of thick dark blood which I of course, had never seen before. The pulmonary artery was identified with some difficulty and was isolated back into the mediastinum. It was amazing to see the Professor gently but blindly insert a right angle clamp into the mediastinum and after dissecting over his index finger, pull out the innominate artery...Vivien Thomas stood in back of Dr. Bl alock and offered a number of helpful suggestions in regard to the actual technique of the procedure.
An illustration by Leon Schlossberg of the procedure.
By permission of Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics, now known as the
Journal of The American College of Surgeons.
"How 2 Doctors Give New Lives to Blue Babies" (page 1), New York Herald Tribune, February 15, 1946 (page 2)
Dr. Blalock's contributions to surgery were recognized nationally and internationally. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Among the prestigious honors which Dr. Alfred Blalock received were the
Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, the Passano Award, the Matas Award, and the Lasker Award.
...
