The Matter of the Heart: 11 Key Operations in the History of Cardiac Surgery

Cardiac surgery today is much safer than it used to be: an enormous number of procedures have become routine, and most patients fully recover. In the past, when trying new operations, surgeons prepared in advance for the fact that few of their patients would be able to get better. Nevertheless, the history of cardiology contains many cases where recoveries became a real sensation thanks to human ingenuity.

The heroes of this book are not only those who held surgical instruments, but also psychologists, engineers, biochemists, and inventors whose work made the efforts of cardiac surgeons possible. Of course, the patients themselves—with their relatives and loved ones, who voluntarily agreed to take part in these experiments—are also central. It is thanks to heroes like these that modern cardiac surgery was born!