Charles A. Hufnagel

Charles Anthony Hufnagel ( born August 15, 1916 in Louisville ( Kentucky), † May 31 1989 in Washington, DC) was an American surgeon and university lecturer.

He invented the artificial heart valve which he on September 11, 1952 for the first time a human, a 30 years old woman began. Later, he made ​​major contributions to the development of the heart - lung machine.

Life

Hufnagel was the son of a doctor. He was born in Louisville and grew up in Richmond ( Indiana). He studied at the University of Notre Dame and received his doctorate at Harvard Medical School. In 1950, he moved to Georgetown University, where he worked as Director of Surgery Research Laboratory and professor of surgery was. He worked on the transplantation of the heart and other organs.

1974 Hufnagel was chairman of a medical commission that investigated the health status of the U.S. President Richard M. Nixon in connection with the trial on the Watergate scandal on behalf of John Siricas. The committee were next Hufnagel John J. Jr. Spilell from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, and Richard Starr Ross of Johns Hopkins University. The doctors discovered Nixon was too ill for at least six weeks in order to appear in court, but did not exclude this possibility for the future.