Jarvik 7

Many people have wondered over the years whether it’s possible to create a man made organ and make it function in the human body as if it was real. Scientists have been working on this idea for a while now and what they have come up with is the “Jarvik 7”¹. This is the first man made heart that has been made to go inside of a human. The man behind this incredible creation is Dr. Robert Jarvik¹. He has been working off of the idea that it is possible to create a heart that seems so natural. The way he designed the heart makes it look like two spheres that are connected together and out of each one comes a cylinder shaped like a tube with an opening at the end². The heart has those two pumps that get the blood in and out. It is made out of materials such as plastic and aluminum¹, which is the major difference between a real one and a fake one. Since the heart can only be powered from the outside and not the inside it causes a problem because by having hoses through your chest can lead to things such as an infection². So since this heart can only do so much it lasts for a little while. To put this artificial heart to the test surgeon William DeVries² did the operation to put in the first implant of the heart into patient named Barney Clark². The surgery was a success everything went well. But the negative about it was that Clark only survived for less than a half a year, 112 days¹. With technology helping us today, who knows but it could be possible that in 20 years we could have working artificial organs for every part of the body.

¹ Bankston, John. Robert Jarvik and the first artificial heart. Bear, Del.: Mitchell Lane Pub., 2003.

² Fox, Renée C., and Judith P. Swazey. Spare parts: organ replacement in American Society. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.