General Information

Serial #

N/A

Part Number

5

Total Parts

6

AKA

artificial kidney machine

Patents

N/A

General Description

Opaque cellulose acetate casing material wound on unfinished cardboard roll.

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

N/A

Width

N/A

Height

2.6 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

9.5 cm

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Medical Technology

Category

Research

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Murray

Country

Canada

State/Province

Ontario

City

Toronto

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Ontario

Period

Used 1946- 1947.

Canada

First artificial kidney machine made in North America by Dr. Gordon Murray, simultaneously and independently of Willem Kolff's invention in Holland in the 1940s. Designed and built by Murray himself, it was used successfully on four patients at Toronto General Hospital, 1946-47. Murray was a remarkable surgeon and innovator whose work earned him international recognition. In the 1930s Dr. Murray introduced the anticoagulant Heparin to world clinical practice; in the '40s he developed the first artificial kidney in North America; and in 1955 he performed the first successful transplant of a human heart valve. Unfortunately, these achievements are often overshadowed by his later, controversial work on an anti-cancer serum, and on unconventional surgery for injuries caused by traumatic paraplegia. (Ref. 3]

Function

To contain blood during circulation through dialysing bath, and allow harmful waste to pass through into dialysate solution.

Technical

In the early version of his artificial kidney, Murray used cellulose acetate sausage casing with a diameter of 1-inch in the dialysing membrane. The casing had first to be bathed in warm tap water. It was then wound around the wire mesh frame, and held in position between small metal pegs. While effective in allowing some substances to pass through the membrane, the ratio of volume to surface area was not practical. In later versions up to 150 feet of 1/4-inch tubing was used to transport the patient's blood through the diaylsing bath. [Ref. 6] This length of casing may have been intended for use as replacement material, or it may be leftover from the cylinder's construction. Roschlau's design of the dialyzer used in the second artificial kidney machine utilized a parallel-plate arrangement: 30 layers of dialysis units each with two membranes and two dialysis compartments produced a flat-plate parallel-flow filter. [see 2002.0620.3]

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

UHN catalogue no. "994.17.1" printed by hand in pencil on inside of cardboard roll. "12/32 x 100 [?] ft. 231" printed by hand in pencil on inside of cardboard roll.

Missing

None.

Finish

Opaque cellulose acetate casing material wound on unfinished cardboard roll.

Decoration

N/A