Through the early 1950s, nearly 20,000 children were born each year with congenital
heart defects. The majority of these “blue babies” would die almost immediately. The
pioneering surgeon C. Walton Lillehei performed the first successful repair of a ventral
septal defect. But even after this miraculous intervention, Lillehei’s patients were
not in the clear. The team discovered that after surgery, the children’s hearts could
still unpredictably stop beating if there was damage to the vulnerable electrical
conduction system. A solution existed, but it was far from ideal. Cardiologist Paul
Zoll had recently developed a large pacemaker machine that could deliver periodic
electrical impulses through electrodes strapped to the chest. Though it saved lives,
the treatment was painful, and the child’s mobility was limited to the length of the
electrical cord.
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
August 13,
2018
Received in revised form:
August 10,
2018
Received:
August 8,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
