Guide to Collections Relating to the History of Artificial Internal Organs

Terumo R&D Center

1500 Inokuchi Nakai-cho Asigarakami-gun Kanagawa 259-0151 Japan

(0465) 81-4112

(08) 3374-8399

Yutaka Kasai
Head-office, Terumo Corporation
General Affairs Division
2-44-1 Hatagaya Shibuya-ku Tokyo 151-0072 Japan

Appointment required.

Terumo Corporation, located in Japan, exhibits numerous historical materials relating to the work of Dr. T. Akutsu at their Artificial Heart Museum of Terumo R&D Center in Kanagawa.

Collections

Artificial Heart Museum Collection of Terumo R&D Center, Japan, c. 1957 to 1981

Tetsuzo Akutsu, M.D., PhD (b.1922) made significant contributions in the field of mechanical heart devices through his work as a member of the Dr. W. Kolff team at the Cleveland Clinic that implanted the first artificial heart in an animal in the United States in 1957, and later at the Texas Heart Institute, where the Akutsu-III artificial heart was implanted in 1981 as a bridge-to-transplantation. (This was Dr. D. Cooley's second clinical implantation of a mechanical heart.)

Historical materials related to the work of Dr. T. Akutsu include:

• Akutsu molds 1957: two copper molds of the first artificial heart (The Akutsu heart)
• Parts and molds of other early artificial hearts, including a part of prototype model for a Magneto-hydraulic artificial heart, and a part and wax molds for a Pendulum artificial heart
• The first model of an artificial heart (sac-type) made of Silastic made in 1964
• Silastic artificial heart, Model 1971
• Plaster casts of a pair of ventricles for the "Akutsu Model III" made in 1981 for clinical use

No restrictions to view display.