Volume 70 Number 5 October 2003	back to contents

Address all correspondence to Dr. Robert S. Litwak, Professor, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Box 1028, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One East 100th Street, New York, NY 10029.

Accepted for publication January 2002.

ABSTRACT

Beginning in the early years of the twentieth century, there has been a continuing record of significant contribution made by Mount Sinai physicians to the surgical management of thoracic and cardiovascular pathology. The availability of intratracheal anesthesia, a method developed at this institution, was the sine qua non which made it possible for surgeons to perform thoracic, and later, cardiac procedures. Of great importance to medicine in general, and surgery in particular, were the investigations of two Mount Sinai physicians that made the transfusion of blood safe, and the modern blood bank a reality. The later contributions of Mount Sinai staff members in the effective employment of open-heart surgery without the use of donor blood, mechanical support of the failing heart, cardiac transplantation, and complex aortic surgery is described.

KEY WORDS

History of cardiothoracic surgery, cardiac surgery, pacemaker implantation, hypothermia, intratracheal anesthesia, blood transfusion, Jehovah’s Witness.

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