I read with interest the article by Vendramin and colleagues , reminding
us with the 70th anniversary for the first artificial heart valve that
was invented by Hufnagel and was first implanted in 1952. This was in an
era, where standard heart valve replacement was not feasible, and the
heart lung machine was in its very primitive phase to allow such
operation to be performed in the way we do it today. This made me dig a
bit in the literature and read more in depth about Dr. Hufnagel, one of
the most gifted American surgeons and his pioneer work.