Dialysis 1943 – Treating Kidney Failure

Our kidneys perform many functions, including secreting hormones and removing waste that is directed to the bladder. 

When diseases such as diabetes cause kidney failure, the lost kidney function can be performed by dialysis machines that use an artificial membrane to filter the blood. During hemodialysis, larger substances such as red blood cells and large proteins remain on one side of the membrane that is in contact with the blood. Toxins in the patient's blood pass by diffusion into a fluid called dialysate and are removed with it. The purified blood is returned to the body, and excess fluid in the blood is also removed.

Although the German physician Georg Haas performed dialysis on a patient in 1924, his equipment was not sufficient to save patients' lives. The Dutch physician Willem Kolff, who built the first full-scale dialysis machine in 1943, is regarded as the father of dialysis. His original version used sausage skins and various spare parts. The first patient saved with this original machine was a woman with acute kidney failure who had fallen into a coma. After 11 hours of dialysis in 1945, she regained consciousness, and her first intelligible words on emerging from the coma were “I'm going to divorce my husband!”

In the 1960s, in the absence of connection devices—such as the Teflon shunt invented by Dr. Belding Scribner—dialysis could not be repeated without damaging blood vessels. There was also a limited number of dialysis machines at that time. As a result, anonymous committees decided who would live and who would die.

Dr. John Maher writes: 

“The survival rates of patients maintained on dialysis, approaching those of people with healthy kidney function, are among the extraordinary achievements of technology. Yet, compared with the divine prototype, dialysis is a more expensive and time-consuming substitute for missing kidney function. It also cannot perform the kidneys' hormonal and metabolic activities.”

About the Article Image: A roller-pump hemodialysis machine used by people awaiting kidney transplantation. Hemodialysis generally involves four-hour sessions three times a week.

Historical Figures Mentioned in the Article: Georg Haas (1886–1971), Willem Johan Kolff (1911–2009), Belding Hibbard Scribner (1921–2003)

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