This circa 1959 heart-lung machine is on display on the 9th floor of the main building of Calgary's Foothills Medical Centre, next to the public elevators. The manufacturer’s model plate identifies it as a Pemco Heart Pump, made in Cleveland. Today, we would call it a cardiopulmonary bypass or heart-lung machine, used to take over the function of those organs during open heart surgery and other procedures.
Pemco, in collaboration with Dr. Earle Kay and Dr. Frederick Cross and Dr. Dick Jones, invented the Kay-Cross Rotary Disc Reservoir-Oxygenator, which allowed a patient's blood to be oxygenated without introducing air bubbles or coagulating. This was done by passing it through a series of rotating discs, mounted within a horizontal glass cylinder. This process took the place of the patient's lungs during surgery. Around 1958, Pemco paired the Kay-Cross Oxygenator with a precision pump, to create a heart-lung machine.
Calgary’s Holy Cross Hospital (now the Holy Cross Centre) was the home of Calgary’s first cardiac surgery unit. The unit was created in 1958, and was headed by Dr. George Miller, who had been trained in cardio-thoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic. In 1960, the Calgary Associate Clinic donated a heart-lung machine to the Holy Cross Hospital. The Alberta Heart Fund and Lion's Club donated money to purchase additional equipment (gas analyzer, hypothermia unit, and telethermometer) required for its use. This enabled the Holy Cross cardiac unit to become the first in southern Alberta to perform open-heart surgery.
The Holy Cross Hospital was shut down as an acute care centre in 1996. The cardiac unit was moved to the cardiac unit at the Foothills Medical Centre, which is where this display case is located. It is unclear exactly when the display was created, but it has been in this spot for at least ten years.
The brass plaque on the display case reads:
"In honour of
Dr. G.E. Miller
For donating the
Cardio pulmonary bypass pump"
"This pump was used by
Dr. Miller and his team at the Holy Cross Hospital
from 1959 - 1969."
Below the plaque, a colour photo has been taped, with the words:
" In loving memory:
"DR. GEORGE EMMERSON MILLER
"1919 - 2009"
On the top right corner of the case, a label gives the legend for the contents of the display case:
1. Vascular Clamps
2. Fine Needle Driver
3. Potts (Vascular) Scissors
4. Tourniquet
5. Sternal Saw
6. Gigli Saw
7. Mitral Valve Dilators
8. Mitral Valve Commissurotomy Knives
9. Beck 1 Rasp
10. Tissues
11. Rib Approximator
12. Bulldogs (Vascular Clamps)
13. First Generation Pacemakers
14. Mechanical Heart Valves
15. Valve Sizer”
REFERENCES and FURTHER READING
"Hospital receives grants," May 5, 1960 (page 27 of 54). Calgary Herald (1939-) Retrieved from (
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Wikipedia: Cardiopulmonary bypass. (
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Pemco: Pemco Inc., History (
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UT Southwestern Digital Archives: "The Pemco Heart Pump was used during open-heart surgery..." [photo of similar heart-lung machine in use, 1970] (
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Kwasny, Barbara (ed.). Nuns and Nightingales: The History of the
Holy Cross School of Nursing 1907-1979, p. 21. (
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Alberta Register of Historic Places: Macnab Wing of the Holy Cross Hospital. (
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McInnis and Holloway Funeral Homes: George Emmerson Miller Obituary [d. 2009] (
visit link)