History of The Heart

  • Discovery of Blood Types

    Karl Landsteiner demonstrated that people have different blood types, which are determined by markermolecules on their red blood cells.
  • Blood Banks

    30 years later Charles Drew demonstrated that emergency transfusions could successfully be done with plasma if whole blood was not available.
  • First Heart Transplant

    Christiaan Barnad, a South African surgeon, performed the first transplant of a human heart.
  • Artificial Heart

    An artificial heart, developed by Robert Jarvik, was implanted into a patient by surgeon William DeVries at the University of Utah.
  • Laser Beam Unclogs Arteries

    The United States government approved a device that uses a laser beam to burn away material causing blockage in some arteries.