Surgeons have been making hopeful progress toward their dream of perfecting a mechanical heart, but last week it appeared that for many cases nature had beaten them to the answer. If the patient is a child suffering from an inborn heart defect, the University of Minnesota reported, the best substitute for the human heart is another heart. Doctors have so used it in three operations, hooking up a child-patient's blood flow with the father's so that the father's heart and lungs do the work for both. This can go on for half an hour, at least. In that precious time the...
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