By 1989 such devices had largely become a bridge to human heart transplants (see transplantation, medical).īeginning 2001, however, a second type of artificial heart, the AbioCor, was implanted in a number of patients. Two major drawbacks of the Jarvik-7 were the danger of stroke from clots formed in the artificial heart and the need for the patient to be hooked to the external air compressor that powered the pump. The first one used on a human being, the Jarvik-7, was implanted (1982) in Barney Clark, who lived for 112 days another patient, William Schroeder, lived 620 days. Currently the closest we are to a fully-functioning artificial heart is the Carmat, but it still has a way to go before artificial hearts become as commonplace as artificial hips.Heart, artificial, external or surgically implanted mechanical device designed to replace a patient's diseased heart. The artificial heart had belonged to, Michael Drummond, the sixth recipient of a Jarvik-7, and the artifact is in the permanent collections of the museum.įrom a scientific perspective, it’s hard to call Clark’s experience with the Jarvik-7 a total failure, but on the 34th anniversary of his final act, his death remains shrouded in ethical ambiguity. Artificial body parts have become more common than they were when Clark received his heart.įor curator Judy Chelnick of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, holding a Jarvik-7 in her hands was her first "Smithsonian 'oh wow'" moment, reports Mencahem Wecker for. The artificial heart remains a not-yet-attained scientific goal, though Haberman notes that the FDA withdrew approval for the Jarvik-7 in 1990, “citing concerns about the manufacturer’s quality control.” But there are others, some descended from it. At 11 pages, the form was “notable more for its length than for its content,” reports the ACLU. The consent form Clark signed was “incomplete, internally inconsistent, and confusing,” History News Network reports one contemporary bioethicist as saying. The spokesperson described his death as having “dignity,” but to some members of the emerging field of bioethics its circumstances were anything but dignified-or ethical. It couldn’t be replaced by a simple pneumatic pump, and infection damaged his organs at the same time.
to describe the heart as merely a pump is much like saying that all the cellist Yo-Yo Ma does is drag horsehair across wires,” Haberman writes. “.We must recognize that death is an ethical as well as a medical issue,” Brauer wrote.Ĭlark died of “circulatory collapse and secondary multiorgan system failure,” a hospital spokesperson told Lawrence K. Schroeder, the longest to survive after transplant, lived for 620 days. In the almost six years between Clark’s death and the article, four more men had received artificial hearts. He had convulsions, kidney failure and memory lapses before his ultimate death, adds Haberman.Īfter his death, his widow Una Loy said her husband “believed in the artificial-heart concept and wanted to make a contribution,” analyst Ralph Breauer wrote in The New York Times in 1988. In those days, suffering from the infections that made artificial organ transplant such a dicey proposition, he floated in and out of consciousness, Long writes, several times asking to be allowed to die.
He lived for another 112 days, his heart powered by a dishwasher-sized air compressor that he was permanently tethered to, writes Clyde Haberman for the New York Times. On December 2, 1982, Clark became the world’s first recipient of an artificial heart. With the understanding that his long-term survival chances were almost zero, Long writes, Clark agreed to undergo the transplant in the interests of science. The plastic and metal contraption was intended to replace his failing heart and do what it could not. His last hope, such as it was: the newly FDA-approved Jarvik 7.
He was so sick, in fact, that he was ineligible for a heart transplant. He was 61, a dentist from Seattle, whose congestive heart failure meant he had trouble walking from bedroom to bathroom, writes Tony Long for Wired.
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