“Vulnerato corde homo vivere non potest” (“Man can not live with a wounded heart”)

Abstract

The first ever successful cardiac surgery was a repair of a stab wound of the right ventricle by Dr Ludwig Rehn from Frankfurt, Germany on 7th September 1896. It required Dwight Harken to successfully operate on bomb victims of world war II and to save more than 100 soldiers to open the heart to surgical techniques. He operated on 130 soldiers without a single fatality. This article recalls these two moments of cardiac surgery.

Keywords

• Cardiac surgery
• Dwight Harken
• History
• Ludwig Rehn