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Melrose Heart Lung Machine - Artefact of the Month; October 2007. During the 1950s, heart surgery was a rapidly developing field. Dr Dennis Melrose developed the heart lung machine at the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith in London. This machine was designed to allow surgeons to operate on an exposed dry heart.
In 1957, Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes joined Sir Douglas Robb and others on the Greenlane Hospital cardiac team. Barratt-Boyes was convinced that the Melrose machine was an essential tool in the development of heart surgery. He asked Robb to apply to the Hospital Board for £3,000 to purchase the machine. The application was successful and the machine duly arrived.
When Sid Yarrow, Senior Technical Officer, unpacked the machine, he discovered that it could not be used as delivered, but required a good deal of alteration and manufacture of parts not included. Major challenges to be overcome included problems with the venous pump, the oxygenating capacity, and controlling the frothing of blood. Sterilisation of the heat-sensitive Perspex parts was also a major problem at that time. Fortunately, Alfred Melville of the Auckland Industrial Development Laboratory offered to manufacture the parts required in their precision workshop.
On 3rd September 1958, an 11-year old girl was successfully operated on by Barratt-Boyes using the Melrose machine to bypass her heart for 25 minutes. This pioneering operation was undertaken without text books or manuals and before the development of modern sterilisation and computer aided techniques that are available today.
Reference: Yarrow, S. ‘How it all started: New Zealand's first open heart operation.’ New Zealand Medical Journal, 12 July 1989.
The Melrose Heart Lung Machine in action during the first open heart operation in New Zealand. Photo courtesy of Sid Yarrow.
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