The Cleveland Clinic is a Cleveland institution, with basically a whole neighborhood to themselves in the city and outposts in every suburb and town in Northeast Ohio. But it’s not just their modern innovations that have been world-renowned. Back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the Clinic and other hospitals and research centers around town were on the cutting edge of cardiac research. These photos capture some of those advancements.

All photos via the Cleveland Memory Project.

Dr. Frederick Cross and Richard Jones Consult in Heart Labortory, 1956
Drs. Earl B. Kay (left) and Frederick Cross of St. Luke’s Hospital Adjust Their Heart-Lung Machine, 1956
One of World’s First Stopped Heart Surgeries at the Cleveland Clinic, 1956
Team of Clinic Nurses and Doctors who Participated in Cleveland’s First Stopped Heart Surgery, 1956
Drs. Willem Kolff and Tetsuzo Akitsu Examine an Artificial Heart Developed at the Cleveland Clinic, 1958
Cleveland Press Article Describing Dr. Claude Beck Best Heart Surgeon in the Country, 1958
Cleveland Press Article Declaring Cleveland Heart Center of the World, 1958
Artificial Heart Developed by the Cleveland Clinic, First to Ever be Implanted in an Animal, 1958
Patient Undergoing Routine Heart Catheterization, 1958
Watching a Heart Catheterization on a TV Screen at the Cleveland Clinic, 1958
Synthetic Aortic Valves Made of Teflon Cloth, 1960
Dr. Henry Zimmerman Showing How to do Cardiac Resuscitation, 1961
Examining Heart-Lung Machine by the Cleveland Clinic and Curtis Industries, Inc., 1961
NASA’s Lewis Research Center, 1962
Dr. Helen Brown and Dr. Irvine Page of the Cleveland Clinic Research Meat for Low-Fat Diets, 1963
McGovern-Cromie Artificial Heart Valve Developed by Cleveland’s Pemco, Inc., 1964
A Cleveland Press Article Discussing New Cardiovascular Care Unit at Clinic, Believed to be First in the World, 1967
Open Heart Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, 1967
Dr. Earl B. Kay and a Researcher at NASA’s Lewis Research Center Test a Heart Assist Pump Designed for St. Vincent Charity Hospital, 1967
Researchers at Cleveland Clinic Examining Artificial Heart, 1974
Cleveland Clinic’s Catheterization Waiting Room, 1976
Monitoring a Holstein Calf Implanted With an Artificial Heart at the Cleveland Clinic, 1976
Dr. Harriet P. Dustan, Hypertension Researcher at the Cleveland Clinic and Future President of the American Heart Association, 1977

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