Nos. 288-0421 - 288-0440

Series MSS 2/204-01 contains a set of schematic drawings and plans of the heart lung machine developed in the 1950s by the International Business Machines Corporation for John Heysham Gibbon. The plans are numbered, 288-0100 to 288-0314 and 288-0350 to 288-0469, and filed in numerical sequence. The collection contains 344 items.

The plans, produced from 1950 to 1954 and approved in 1954, concern Model III of the machine and incorporate minor refinements and design changes on Model II, which was the first used successfully with human patients. The Model III was the last heart lung machine built by IBM; it was smaller than the previous model and simplified. It could handle a greater blood supply as well as keep a constant volume of blood flowing through the patient. Blood temperature and pressure controls were also refined.

The heart lung machine pumped to oxygenate blood outside the body, thereby enabling a surgeon to bypass the heart. This development opened the way for all open heart surgery, repair, and transplantation.

Series MSS 2/204-02 contains experiment notes; medical records for the first patient on whom the heart lung machine was successfully used; photographs; and printed material, primarily articles on Dr. Gibbon and the heart lung machine.