Medical Museum

The Beat Goes On: A History of Cardiology

Introduction

The human heart has always enjoyed a privileged place in conceptions of physical well-being. The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Medical Museum's exhibition, The Beat Goes On: A History of Cardiology, traces the interwoven history of medical knowledge and technological advance from Galen's early description of the circulatory system to modern breakthroughs in prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The exhibition begins with a Time Line, which graphically traces these major developments and identifies heart researchers who have made outstanding contributions. As can be seen, bloodletting loomed large in the thinking of clinicans well into the nineteenth century. Other parts of the exhibit document the role of diet and lifestyle as risk factors for cardiac disease, display surgical instruments used in a heart transplant operation, and demonstrate techniques for cardiovascular imaging and diagnosis. Also exhibited are representative examples of older diagnostic and therapeutic devices and methods, such as nineteenth-century scarifiers for bloodletting, a mid twentieth-century EKG machine, and several artificial heart valves, which have only recently been supplanted by more refined versions. In this display of older, more recent and up-to-date examples of therapy and technology, two features emerge: first, the virtual standstill of knowledge about the heart's mechanism from Galen until Harvey; second, the rapid acceleration of expertise and correlated therapies in the last 100 years.

Over the last thirty years, UIHC and several departments in the College of Medicine have played a role in the understanding and treatment of heart disorders. Various techniques of non-invasive diagnosis -- echocardiography, x-ray imaging, computer-assisted tomography, magnetic resonance imaging -- have been the focus of sustained research. Early open-heart surgery was performed here, using a heart-lung machine developed by a UIHC faculty member. As surgical techniques rapidly evolved and heart transplant operations became increasingly successful, even severely ill patients could expect to recover lives of quality. Through further advances in heart research at UIHC, The University of Iowa College of Medicine and similar institutions, many diseases of the heart and circulatory system will be anticipated, measured, managed, and finally, cured.