SINCE the early successes of Gibbon1 in the maintenance of an artificial circulation in experimental animals, it has been generally recognized that such a system when perfected would be of tremendous value in human intracardiac surgery. Until recently, the workers in this field (Stokes and Gibbon,2 Björk,3 Crafoord,4 Jongbloed,5 Dennis6 and others) have concentrated their efforts on the development of an artificial system which would temporarily relieve the entire heart and lungs of their function. Such systems would have a broad field of application. Conditions of the heart and great vessels such as acquired and congenital valvular deformities, septal defects, and abnormalities of the pulmonary arteries would be amenable to a direct visual approach. An artificial heart-lung system might also be used as an emergency procedure to tide a patient over a serious cardiopulmonary crisis.
All these workers have been able to maintain the