Alfred Blalock

Alfred Blalock ( born April 5, 1899 in Culloden, Georgia, † September 15, 1964 ) was an American surgeon. He was particularly known for his pioneering medical research in the field of traumatic shock and the Blalock - Taussig anastomosis, which he developed together with his assistant Vivien Thomas and the pediatrician and cardiologist Helen Taussig. The Blalock - Taussig operation was originally used as a palliative surgery for cyanotic children ( blue baby syndrome), today it is used for the temporary relief of symptoms until the final surgery in infancy.

In 1954 he was awarded the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize - Albert Lasker Award and for Clinical Medical Research, and in 1959 Canada Gairdner International Award.

Training

At the age of 14 years Blalock was in the Georgia Military Academy - today's Woodward Academy - was added, an entity belonging to the University of Georgia prep school. In 1918 he acquired there the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then attended the Medical School of Johns Hopkins University. He shared a room there with the doctor later Tinsley Randolph Harrison, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. He completed his medical degree in 1922 from a title of the Johns Hopkins University. Since he was hoping for a job as a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, he remained the next three years in Baltimore. During this time he completed a training in medical specialties of urology, a year working as an assistant physician for the surgical department and an intern ( externship ) in the Department of Oto-Rhino - Laryngology. In the summer of 1925 he moved to Boston, where he was to take a permanent position as a surgeon at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, but he resigned in favor of an activity at Vanderbilt - " to unpack his suitcase without ever ".

Vanderbilt University

In July 1925 Blalock joined the newly created position as a staff surgical assistant medical director of the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where his friend Harrison worked. He stood Barney Brooks, Vanderbilt's first professor of surgery and director of the surgical department at the Hospital of Vanderbilt University. Blalock taught medical students in the third and fourth year and was responsible for the surgical research laboratory. During this time, dropping his research on the causes and treatment of hemorrhagic and traumatic shock. Through his experiments on dogs, he realized that the traumatic shock caused by blood loss ( hypovolemic shock). He advocated the use of blood plasma and blood products for immediate therapy. Based on these findings, many lives could be saved during the Second World War. However, Blalock suffered in these years relapsing tuberculosis. The first work appeared in 1927 for treatment of shock; it was, however, written by his friend Harrison on the basis of data determined by Blalock that he could not compose himself due to his illness.

1938 Blalock tried on dogs high blood pressure in the pulmonary circulation (pulmonary hypertension ) artificially cause by sewing together the subclavian artery ( subclavian artery) with the left pulmonary artery. Although the desired effect did not occur in these experiments, he took the idea in later years on again.

Johns Hopkins University

As Blalock in 1941 offered the position as chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he insisted that his medical- technical assistant Vivien Thomas should come with him. Both men developed a close working relationship, which should remain more than 30 years. Together they developed a shunt technique as the treatment of coarctation of the aorta ( a narrowing of the body 's main artery in the region of the aortic arch ). In the time when they were working on this issue, they made ​​Helen Taussig to the problem of congenital cyanosis (german blue baby syndrome ) attention in children.

Often, the cause of this disease is a tetralogy of Fallot ( ToF abbreviated ), a combination of four heart defects: ventricular septal defect, a riding aorta, pulmonary stenosis, which in turn lead to an enlargement of the right half of the heart. Children with such malformations suffer from a central oxygen supply, which may be visible externally by a blue to violet coloration of the skin, mucous membranes, as well as the lips and fingernails already ( cyanosis).

Blalock developed the idea to an operational improvement in their status from its previous attempts to hypertension. His approach was through a connection ( anastomosis, Eng. Shunt) of Subclavian ( subclavian ) with the pulmonary artery to conduct more oxygen-rich blood from the lungs into the left side of the heart, from where it is then pumped into the body. The surgical technique was perfected by Vivien Thomas in dogs. The first operation of this kind was made ​​on 29 November 1944, the two- year-old Eileen Saxon; the visible blue discoloration of the child disappeared immediately after the operation. Although the child's life could only be extended by two months in this case; the operation itself, however, was a pioneer of pediatric cardiac surgery.

Movies on Blalock and his assistant Vivien Thomas

2003 radiated from the Public Broadcasting Service in the context of the series American Experience documentary Partners of the Heart, which has the cooperation of Blalock and Vivien Thomas at Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins University on the topic. Directed by Andrea Kalin, who had also written the script along with Lou Potter. Embedded in the documentation are flashbacks with Morgan Freeman as narrator; Director of flashbacks was Bill Duke. Partners of the Heart was founded in 2004 with the Erik Barnouw Prize - the Organization of American Historians Award for best historical documentary.

In 2004, the film was broadcast a work of God upon the cooperation of Blalock and Thomas at HBO. Blalock is represented here by Alan Rickman, Thomas Mos Def, directed by Joseph Sargent, producer Robert Cort was. This television production was, in addition to other awards, in 2004 and 2005 with three Emmys won a Peabody Award.

References and Literature

• Thomas, Vivien T., Partners of the Heart: Vivien Thomas and His Work With Alfred Blalock University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985 ISBN 0-8122-1634-2. .
• McCabe, Katie, "Like Something the Lord Made" Washingtonian August 1989.
• Walter H. Merrill, "What 's Past is Prologue ". Ann Thorac Surg 1999; 68:2366-75. PMID 10617047