The Machine That Breathed: the Gibbons, IBM and the Heart-Lung Machine | Kitson Teaches Pro, Book 6
Kitson Teaches Pro, Book 6: the story of John and Mary Gibbon and the IBM engineers who spent more than twenty years building a machine that could take over the work of the heart and lungs, leading to the first successful bypass operation in 1953. History and engineering only; no medical advice.
A regular book in plain, readable prose (38 pages, PDF), written for working professionals, engineers and curious adults. What is inside:
- The problem: why surgeons could not operate inside a beating heart
- The engineering, explained properly: pumping blood and adding oxygen without harming it
- 6 May 1953, told with care, and where the sources differ
- What came after, and how others built on it
- Lessons from a 23-year engineering project
- Lessons for engineers and professionals today
Every fact is sourced, and the full list of sources with access dates is at the back. Where sources disagree, the book says so.
The free video for this book is on the Kitson Workshop YouTube channel, in the Kitson Teaches Pro playlist. More at kitson-workshop.pages.dev
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