The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations by Thomas MorrisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow. An amazing tour of heart surgery from antiquity to the age of robot surgery: aneurysms, Blue baby syndrome (cyanosis), artificial hearts valves, catheterization, pacemakers... Wow, people committing suicide due to the Chinese torture of their early, clicking pacemakers and artificial valves. Also, note to self, Charles Lindberg emerged from reclusion not with an artificial heart, but having a had a hand in developing the first perfusion pump, precursor of the heart lung machine.
Wow. Vladimir Demikhov, Soviet scientist and organ transplant pioneer, did the two-headed dog experiment. Shocking and seemingly pointless and unnecessary. Still, it was not the point of this book, but I think it changed my attitude about vivisection. I never looked into it and previously thought only of vivisection as cruel, unnecessary, and pain-inducing surgery on live animals resulting in crimes like Demikhov's two-headed dog. Actually, 'vivisection' (from Latin vivus, meaning "alive", and sectio, meaning "cutting") is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals. It does not mean anesthesia was not used, suffering was not minimized, life was invariably shortened, and - importantly here - that many human lives were not saved or improved. It does feel like reading this history that important heart surgery advances for children and those cardiologically impaired could not have gotten to where it is today without early experimentation on animals, mostly dogs. Some children got to meet the dogs upon which the experiments were done to benefit them.
[I received an ARC of this book through Goodreads Giveaways.]
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