Artificial maintenance of the systemic circulation without participation of the right ventricle.

RESUSCITATION of the heart in patients with cardiac arrest or ventricular fibrillation is usually accomplished with cardiac massage. This restores circulation in both the pulmonary and the systemic circuits, but tit times it seems to be inadequate because the blood pressure and the pulse cannot be adequately maintained. A further disadvantage is that a surgical procedure cannot be performed on the heart while manual massage is being carried out. In seeking to overcome these disadvantages, we turned our attention to mechanical methods of restoring circulation. The device to pump blood will be described later. The pumping circuit and the method of cannulation posed a great problem. Cannulation of both the systemic and pulmonary circuits in order to connect a pump to each circuit and thus use two separate pumps was thought to be too traumatic and time-consuming a procedure to be carried out successfully. Therefore, it was decided to cannulate the left auricle and the left common carotid artery and to use one pump. If blood was drawn from the left auricle and reintroduced, in retrograde fashion, into the common carotid artery, the pump would be in the position of a left heart (fig. I). Pumping action of the heart could then be stopped by causing ventricular fibrilla-