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Willem Kolff, a young Dutch doctor, built one of the first working artificial kidneys during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Blood ran through cellophane tubing while waste passed through its thin wall into a surrounding fluid. His first 15 patients died; in 1945 a 67-year-old woman became the first to survive.

Willem Kolff, 1943-1945, Kampen, Netherlands

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The treatment is called dialysis: when the kidneys fail, a machine cleans the blood in their place. Kolff worked in the small town of Kampen from 1941, building with whatever wartime shortages allowed: cellophane sausage casings wound around a rotating drum, orange-juice cans and car parts. Over two years he treated 15 patients, and all of them died before his 1945 success. After the war he sent machines to hospitals abroad. He moved to the United States in 1950 and worked at the Cleveland Clinic on dialysis and heart-lung machines. From 1967 he led artificial-organ research at the University of Utah, where the Jarvik-7 artificial heart was developed; its first patient, Barney Clark, lived for 112 days in 1982 and 1983.

Türkçe oku
Genç Hollandalı doktor Willem Kolff, Nazi işgali yıllarında çalışan ilk yapay böbreklerden birini yaptı. Kan selofan bir borunun içinden akarken, atık maddeler borunun ince duvarından geçip çevredeki sıvıya karışıyordu. Tedavi ettiği ilk 15 hasta öldü; 1945'te 67 yaşında bir kadın, hayatta kalan ilk hasta oldu.

Bu tedavinin adı diyalizdir: böbrekler çalışmadığında kanı onların yerine bir makine temizler. Kolff 1941'den itibaren küçük Kampen kasabasında, savaş yıllarının kıtlığında ne bulduysa onunla çalıştı: dönen bir tamburun üzerine sarılmış selofan sosis kılıfları, portakal suyu kutuları ve otomobil parçaları. İki yıl içinde tedavi ettiği 15 hastanın hepsini kaybetti; ilk başarı 1945'te geldi. Savaştan sonra yurt dışındaki hastanelere makineler gönderdi. 1950'de ABD'ye yerleşti ve Cleveland Clinic'te diyaliz makineleri ile kalp-akciğer makineleri üzerinde çalıştı. 1967'den itibaren Utah Üniversitesi'nde yapay organ araştırmalarını yönetti. Jarvik-7 yapay kalbi de orada geliştirildi; bu kalbin ilk hastası Barney Clark, 1982-1983'te 112 gün yaşadı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Willem Johan Kolff
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