Sometimes this was beneficial early research spanning from the 30s to the 50s yielded the first heart-lung machine (a device used to cycle blood through the lungs and body while the heart is operated on), the first portable heart monitor, and the implantation of the first artificial heart valves. policy issue, federal funding for heart research has historically swung with the political tides. “In other words, there are 20 times more losers than winners,” Swartz writes. “The heart was not ‘just a pump’ then-it was the seat of the soul.” Then there are the more recent concerns: “What would it mean if human life could be extended not just by years but by decades? How much is that worth?” Today, heart disease kills more people than all cancers combined, and of the estimated 50,000 people in need of heart transplants, only about 2,500 actually get hearts each year in the U.S. And by the time they did, there was religion to contend with: “For centuries the idea of cutting open a body and actually touching the heart was seen as an act against God,” writes Swartz. and worldwide-a fairly recent issue, given that throughout most of history, people didn’t live long enough to die of it. And if the book lacks a concrete peg, how’s this for a reason to read it: heart disease, Swartz notes early on, is responsible for the largest number of deaths in the U.S. It doesn’t take an acute interest in the human heart to be hooked after only a few pages of Ticker. In her book Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart (Crown), out today, Texas Monthly executive editor and two-time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz brings readers into Frazier’s world, examining his ascent in the field of heart surgery as well as the advancements surgeons and engineers have worked together to make. ![]() ![]() “Bud” Frazier in his leisure clothes-he’s likely to be sporting ostrich-skin boots and a Borsalino tipped hat-and you might not guess that he’s spent the majority of his life in hospitals as one of the world’s foremost heart surgeons, let alone that he’s helped to spearhead a movement toward the development of an artificial heart.
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