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Ann Thorac Surg 2003;76:S2195-S2197
© 2003 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Supplement: Gibbon & His Heart-Lung Machine

Reminiscences of John H. Gibbon, Jr, Md

Harris B Shumacker, Jr, MD*

Distinguished Service Professor of Surgery, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, Maryland, and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

* Address reprint requests to Dr Shumacker, 1000 Lowry St, Delray Beach, FL , USA 33483.

Presented at the symposium, "Gibbon & His Heart-Lung Machine: 50 Years & Beyond," Philadelphia, PA, May 2, 2003.

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Neither Jack nor I could remember when we first met. It was sometime before World War II and our friendship grew remarkably during the war. Jack was commissioned in 1941 in the Pennsylvania Hospital's 52nd Evacuation Hospital, which began its journey to the South Pacific Theater in January. I went to the Southwest Pacific with Johns Hopkins' 118th General. Neither of us needed to be in the military; Jack was 38 when he put on his uniform, and I was 33. Each of us had a wife and children. Joining the army brought to a temporary close Jack's work designing and building a heart-lung machine with a capacity adequate for human use when it was at a most encouraging stage. After Jack had reported to the American Association of Thoracic Surgery the survival of cats after a period of total cardiopulmonary bypass, Leo Eloesser of San Francisco remarked that it reminded him of Jules Verne's seemingly impossible visions that later were accomplished.

It was a coincidence that both of us were invalided back to the States, Jack on a stretcher with a herniated disc in the spring of 1944 and I about a year earlier with a partially paralyzed leg. Both of us were able to return to duty almost immediately, he with a lift on his right shoe, I with a brace on my leg.

It was at the Mayo General Hospital in Galesburg, Illinois, that our friendship became unusually close. I was a happy fellow when Jack arrived as chief of our surgical service about a year after I came there as head of the Vascular Center. Our homes were quite near one another. I can still see his wife Maly at the piano and his children, Schatzie, Johnny, Palzie, and Maggie, standing around singing lustily. We had . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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