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Artificial Hearts

The Allure and Ambivalence of a Controversial Medical Technology

Shelley McKellar

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A comprehensive history of the development of artificial hearts in the United States.

Artificial hearts are seductive devices. Their promissory nature as a cure for heart failure aligned neatly with the twentieth-century American medical community’s view of the body as an entity of replacement parts. In Artificial Hearts, Shelley McKellar traces the controversial history of this imperfect technology beginning in the 1950s and leading up to the present day.

McKellar profiles generations of researchers and devices as she traces the heart’s development and clinical use. She situates the events of...

A comprehensive history of the development of artificial hearts in the United States.

Artificial hearts are seductive devices. Their promissory nature as a cure for heart failure aligned neatly with the twentieth-century American medical community’s view of the body as an entity of replacement parts. In Artificial Hearts, Shelley McKellar traces the controversial history of this imperfect technology beginning in the 1950s and leading up to the present day.

McKellar profiles generations of researchers and devices as she traces the heart’s development and clinical use. She situates the events of Dr. Michael DeBakey and Dr. Denton Cooley’s professional fall-out after the first artificial heart implant case in 1969, as well as the 1982–83 Jarvik-7 heart implant case of Barney Clark, within a larger historical trajectory. She explores how some individuals—like former US Vice President Dick Cheney—affected the public profile of this technology by choosing to be implanted with artificial hearts. Finally, she explains the varied physical experiences, both negative and positive, of numerous artificial heart recipients.

McKellar argues that desirability—rather than the feasibility or practicality of artificial hearts—drove the invention of the device. Technical challenges and unsettling clinical experiences produced an ambivalence toward its continued development by many researchers, clinicians, politicians, bioethicists, and the public. But the potential and promise of the artificial heart offset this ambivalence, influencing how success was characterized and by whom. Packed with larger-than-life characters—from dedicated and ardent scientists to feuding Texas surgeons and brave patients—this book is a fascinating case study that speaks to questions of expectations, limitations, and uncertainty in a high-technology medical world.

Reviews

Reviews

McKellar presents a compelling history of the development of artificial hearts from the 1950s to the present. Her account underscores the tension between the public's infatuation with and wariness of a controversial technology... McKellar’s engaging, thoroughly documented historical account will appeal to general readers, students, and academic professionals.

Shelley McKellar, a historian of medicine at the University of Western Ontario, offers a detailed study of social, cultural, and economic forces that propelled a series of "seductive devices": artificial hearts that fell short of expectations.

A fine piece of work by a gifted historian of science that will most certainly stand out as a go-to source for those interested in a detailed history of surgical and bioengineering efforts to replace flawed, fleshy human hearts with those of mechanical design.

This book is far more than an inward-looking recitation of advance followed by advance. McKellar draws effectively on sociological and anthropological literature to explore the myriad controversies that accompanied the artificial heart's development. She tells us much about physicians, but also a bit about patients. The technological story is nicely imbedded within a changing social and economic context. And the story is a fascinating one.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6.125
x
9.25
Pages
376
ISBN
9781421423555
Illustration Description
32 b&w illus., 9 color plates
Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Multiple Approaches to Building Artificial Hearts
2. Dispute and Disappointment
3. Technology and Risk
4. Media Spotlight
5. Clinical and Commercial Rewards
6. Se

Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Multiple Approaches to Building Artificial Hearts
2. Dispute and Disappointment
3. Technology and Risk
4. Media Spotlight
5. Clinical and Commercial Rewards
6. Securing a Place
7. Artificial Hearts in the Twenty-First Century
Notes
Index

Author Bio
Shelley McKellar
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Shelley McKellar

Shelley McKellar is the Jason A. Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. She is the author of Surgical Limits: The Life of Gordon Murray and the coauthor of Medicine and Technology in Canada, 1900–1950.