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Ticker : the quest to create an artificial heart / Mimi Swartz.

Van Pelt Library RD598.35.T7 S92 2018
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Swartz, Mimi, author.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Frazier, O. Howard.
Cohn, Billy.
Heart, Artificial.
Surgeons.
Heart--Surgery.
History.
United States.
Surgeons--United States--Biography.
Heart--Surgery--History.
Heart.
Medical Subjects:
Heart, Artificial.
Surgeons.
United States.
Local Subjects:
Cohn, Billy.
Frazier, O. Howard.
Heart, Artificial.
Heart--Surgery--History.
Surgeons--United States--Biography.
Surgeons.
United States.
Genre:
Biographies.
History.
Physical Description:
317 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm
Place of Publication:
New York : Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, [2018]
Summary:
"If America could send a man to the moon, why couldn't its best surgeons build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two-time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how hard it can be to replicate nature's greatest creation. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting fifty years of false starts, abysmal failures, and miraculous triumphs, as experienced by one of the world's foremost heart surgeons, O.H. "Bud" Frazier. His journey takes him from a small town in west Texas to one of the country's most prestigious medical institutions, the Texas Heart Institute. The roadblocks to success--medical setbacks, technological shortcomings, government regulations--are immense. But Bud and his associates find inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. A field beside the Nile irrigated with an ancient pump. A hardware store in Brisbane, Australia. A seedy bar on the wrong side of Houston. Ticker is also a riveting history of heart surgery, introducing readers to Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, whose feud dominated its dramatic beginnings. Christiaan Barnard, who changed the world by performing the first heart transplant. Robert Jarvik, whose artificial heart made patient Barney Clark a worldwide symbol of the promise of technology and the perils of experimentation run amuck. Bud's quixotic quest attracts a team of equally brilliant and adventurous supporting players. Billy Cohn, a heart surgeon and inventor who can't resist the call of magic. The driven Daniel Timms, an Australian biomedical engineer with a radical new idea. And, as government money dries up, the unlikeliest of backers, Houston's furniture king, Mattress Mack. In a sweeping narrative of one man's obsession, Ticker takes us on an unforgettable journey into the power and mystery of the human heart."--Dust jacket.
Contents:
Prologue: The tin man
The wizard, 2015
How hard could it be?
The making of a surgeon
A tour of hell
The war at home
The purloined heart
Experiments
Barney who?
The prisoner
The wilderness
Synchronicity
The king of distraction
Heartmates
The Australian guy
Matilda
The occupation
The power source
The dream of eternal life.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-306) and index.
ISBN:
9780804138000
0804138001
OCLC:
1019842417

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