Blalock, Alfred

Blalock, Alfred (1899–1964), surgeon, professor, pioneer of the so‐called blue baby operation.A native of Culloden, Georgia, Blalock graduated from the University of Georgia and earned an M.D. at Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1922. He served as an intern and assistant resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital until 1925, when he became a resident surgeon at Vanderbilt University Hospital. Blalock taught surgery at the medical schools of Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins and held numerous appointments as a visiting lecturer at other universities. During his twenty‐two‐year career at Johns Hopkins, Blalock occupied the posts of director of surgery and surgeon in chief. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, survived by his wife, Mary Chambers O'Bryant, and their three children.

Blalock's research focused on the physiological effects of diminished blood volume. He also conducted the first successful canine transplant of a kidney. His procedure, connecting the organ's vascular supply to a cervical artery, served as a model for the surgical treatment of pulmonary stenosis, a narrowing of the pulmonary artery that causes diminished circulation and a bluish complexion among infants. In 1944, at Johns Hopkins, Blalock and Dr. Helen Taussig conducted the first “blue baby” operation by connecting one end of the left subclavian artery to the left pulmonary artery of a fifteen‐month‐old girl.
See also Medical Education; Medicine: From the 1870s to 1945; Medicine: Since 1945.

Bibliography

Alfred Blalock , Principles of Surgical Care: Shock and Other Problems, 1940.
Mark M. Ravitch , Alfred Blalock, 1899–1964, 1966.

David Cortes