-
Karl Landsteiner discovered that people have different blood types. This enabled blood transfusions to be done safely.
-
Charles Drew showed that emergency transfusions could successfully be done with plasma if whole blood was not available. During World War II, Drew began blood banks and helped save millions of lives on and off the battlefield.
-
Helen Taussig identified the condition that makes some newborn babies's skin to be bluish in color. She discovered that this was lack of oxygen in their blood. Taussig and another surgeon Alfred Blalock developed an operation to save the babies' lives
-
Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant of a human heart.
-
Robert Jarvik invented the artificial heart.
-
The United States government approved a device that uses a laser beam to brun away the material causing blockage in some arteries.
