CARDIAC SURGERY.


Blalock, Alfred; and Helen Taussig. The surgical treatment of malformations of the heart in which there is pulmonary stenosis or pulmonary atresia. Chicago: American Medical Association, 1945. 8vo (216 x 137 mm). 43, [1] pp. Offprint from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 128, May 19, 1945, pp. 189-202. Publisher's printed wrappers. WITH: 8 additional items: 1) Autograph letter signed by Blalock to John C. Turner. Baltimore, November 12, 1958. Blalock writes, in part, "It is good to hear from a member of the class of 1915. Those were the grand old days. My class was 1922. The first Tetralogy of Fallot was operated upon in the latter part of 1944 and we have performed more than 1500 such operations since..."; 2) Helen Taussig, HISTORY OF THE BLALOCK-TAUSSIG OPERATION AND SOME OF THE LONG TERM RESULTS ON PATIENTS WITH TETRALOGY OF FALLOT. Cooperstown, NY, 1970, stiff wrappers, 38pp. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED: "To W. Bruce Fye - reminding you of Hopkins days. Helen B. Taussig"; 3) An 8 x 10 black and white photograph of a 1945 Blalock-Taussig operation (printed in 1996) that depicts Blalock operating (with Cooley assisting) that is SIGNED "Denton A. Cooley M.D., 6-29-05"; 4) An unsigned letter by Cooley on his stationary that accompanied the photograph (item 3). Cooley writes, "Dear Dr. Fye, This photo was made in late 1945 when I was Dr. Blalock's first assistant. Vivien Thomas stands behind Dr. B. The nurse anesthetist is Miss Olive Berger who was Dr. B's favorite. No photograph was made of the historic first procedure Nov 1944 at which I was an intern."; 5) A long typed letter signed by Denton Cooley to W. B. Fye. Houston, February 21, 2007, describing the importance of the Blalock-Taussig operation in the development of cardiac surgery; 6) Helen Taussig, "The Development of the Blalock-Taussig Operation and Its Results Twenty Years Later. 1976, 8pp. Offprint, wrappers; 7) "Landmark Article" reprint of the original Blalock-Taussig 1945 publication published in JAMA 1984. 16pp. Offprint; 8) A xerographic copy of Cooley, "The First Blalock-Taussig Shunt (2010); 9) A xerographic copy of Murphy and Cameron, "The Blalock-Taussig-Thomas Collaboration: A Model for Medical Progress (2008); 10) Jim Murphy, BREAKTHROUGH! HOW THREE PEOPLE SAVED "BLUE BABIES" AND CHANGED MEDICINE FOREVER. Boston 2015, dw, 130pp. First edition. RARE OFFPRINT OF THE LANDMARK OF CARDIAC SURGERY, INSCRIBED by Taussig, as well as by long-time Blalock laboratory assistant Vivien T. Thomas, and Denton Cooley, who here describes himself: "Surgical intern on first subclavian to pulmonary artery anastomosis. November 1944." "Cardiac surgery owes much to the team from Johns Hopkins that developed an operation for tetralogy of Fallot, a common form of cyanotic congenital heart disease. The 'Blalock-Taussig' or 'blue baby' operation, first performed by Alfred Blalock in 1944, was immediately recognized as a major advance ... Helen Taussig, the pioneer pediatric cardiologist, was the first to suggest the creation of an anastomosis between the systemic and pulmonary circulation, and she urged Blalock to develop the innovative operation. Blalock, working with his African-American laboratory assistant Vivien Thomas, eventually succeeded in finding a means of connecting the left subclavian artery to the pulmonary artery, thus creating a shunt that dramatically increased the pulmonary blood flow" (Grolier Medicine 97). "The conception and execution of this operation was brilliant in several ways. It was a triumph of technique ... It was brilliant in conception as a method of relieving severe disability, and ... Last and perhaps most important of all, it showed that cyanotic congenital heart disease, previously incurable and always fatal, could be cured by surgery. This inspired and stimulated the enormous advances in cardiac surgery which followed with almost breathless rapidity within a very short period of time" (Lord Russell Brock in Westaby and Bosher eds., Landmarks in Cardiac Surgery, Oxford, 1997), p 112. "Helen Taussig was a brilliant physician whose contributions advanced the status of women in medicine, her insightful observations influenced the development of cardiac surgery, and she developed a new subspecialty in pediatrics and wrote its first definitive textbook" DMB 5, p 1221. Vivien Thomas was the subject of the 2004 HBO movie Something the Lord Made, and intern Denton Cooley would become a world leader in cardiac surgery. A magnificent association copy. Garrison-Morton 3043.