A handsome, tousle-haired man whose interests ranged from skiing and weightlifting to poetry and theoretical physics, he cited a personal motivation for his work on the device: His father, a physician, had died after open-heart surgery in 1976.
The first artificial heart, the Jarvik-7, was implanted in 1982. Perhaps, like me, you remember the name and occupation of the recipient: Barney Clark, a dentist. When he awakened from the surgery, he said to his wife, "I want to tell you, even though I have no heart, I still love you."
The artificial heart never became a replacement for a real heart. Didn't you think it would, if you were around, reading the news 43 years ago? Artificial hearts are only used as to keep people alive while they wait for a heart from a human donor.
Jarvik, the "handsome, tousle-haired man," also posed in Hathaway shirt ads — like this one, complete with the company's trademark eyepatch. He also posed in a Lipitor ad that got criticized as misleading because Jarvik was "not a cardiologist" and — though the ad depicted him rowing — "apparently, not a rower."
Jarvik was married to Marilyn vos Savant, the woman who's been famous for decades for supposedly having the highest IQ. (She scored 228 on the Stanford-Binet test when she was 10.)
Posts
47 comments:
If you are shooting for a very high IQ score, it's the best strategy to take the test when you are very young.
I had a clotheshorse uncle who always sang "three holes in the button" to the tune of Three Coins In The Fountain as he buttoned up his Hathaway shirts. He was my favorite uncle.
RIP, Dr. Jarvik.
…she gave people the Sunday morning fits with the Monty Hall problem…and it was and is barbaric medicine, putting plastic and circuit boards and batteries inside a body cavity. Every cardiologist says some version of the same thing- we need better treatments. Yet efficacy is elusive. There’s a Texas stem cell team that believes they found something that works but they botched the endpoint of the study, so they’re doing a do over…
“I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.“ (from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Wow. You should explain your headline quote...
WHO failed? Was somebody (his son a junior?) trying to make an artificial heart for Robert Jarvik, the inventor who died? He was successful in making an artificial heart for Barney Clark. Of course we remember that name, as well as Mr. Jarvik's. He didn't fail. He was a hero. He succeeded.
Your problem as a writer is: you don't answer the reader's questions and want everyone to pay the NYT to read the stories that apparently will explain...
Think of your job as an editor, summarizing what you have read and pithily explaining (assuming you have indeed read what you link.) Don't raise more questions in your excerpts.
It's like yesterday: did you really believe McCardle's "friends" were drinking coffee when... they were forced to choose "jump or burn?" Of course not. It was pure instinct. She made up the coffee drinking part too, unless she claims she was on the phone with them, they were saying, "oh what a good brew I got from Starbucks this am... wait what's this? A plane crashing into us. Now it's hot, let me think let me think: jump or burn?" No. That's the lady soap opera take. They went instinctually. No thought at all...
I called her out on her drama."Your friends didn't have to watch." She came back with... they HEARD the bodies hitting." No they didn't. They were too far up. It's all make believe drama, when the truth is bad enough.
Explain your headline in your "story" or choose a better one. Stop getting so distracted: Jarvik... Jarvik. Is that a German name or Scandinavian? THe OED tells us the first reference to Jarvik is...
You write for non thinkers. You admit you prefer male voices and storytellers. You never should have been before a classroom with your prejudices against women. You reward those who agree with you, but... our country needs timely critics today.
Your brainpower is going. Read your own work. Silly goose.
You know what people will likely bring up in the comments that you might have addressed in your original "conversation starter" (if that's how you think of your work here: prompts you throw out?)
Dick Cheney.
Evil Dick Cheney. He and Bush put America on this downward path where nobody wants to bring kids into this country after what we've become. How can they pretend to be "pro life" and encourage children in this world/positivity, when American workers are contributing through tax dollars to Israel in destroying the planet and killing unarmed women and children. You're not masculine, your kept man isn't either. But it is sick what America is doing to the Middle East after all these years to allegedly keep the Jewish people safe. When will they stop depending on us to do their killing for them? Demographics are changing. We won't be propping Israel up forever nor keeping men like Dick Cheney artificially alive forever. Think on those things, look ahead, annie o'boomer?
rehajm said...
…she gave people the Sunday morning fits with the Monty Hall problem…and it was and is barbaric medicine, putting plastic and circuit boards and batteries inside a body cavity. Every cardiologist says some version of the same thing- we need better treatments. Yet efficacy is elusive. There’s a Texas stem cell team that believes they found something that works but they botched the endpoint of the study, so they’re doing a do over…
------------
Let's teach rich people how to use their bodies and eat before retirement age? annie grew up on mars bars and sweet treats and whatever the telly told her to eat while her folks were off drinking, going to key parties, and ogling Playboy bunnies. She didn't know how to exercise or work. Just caught on early how to sexually gain mens attention through showing off her body parts. (I imagine she'd be one of those tight pants wearing girls today, long underwear with no skirt or long shirt to hide the camel toe...) But... how'd that work out for ya? Even with affirmative action, she never enjoyed law or reading. She was a failed painter/drawer who put two sons into the academic mix who are likely mediocrites too. (The boy who went to UW EC out of high school; the gay waiter in the businessworld today) We really need quality thinkers at the top now. Otherwise... well you see where we are at today. People who are wise know what is coming and rightly aren't putting their own skin into that game here.
Holy carp! The eyepatch in Hathaway shirt ads was a creative decision by advertising legend David Ogilvy in 1951. Inspired by a photo of public servant Lewis Douglas, who wore an eyepatch after a fishing accident
Even with heart valve replacement, artificial valves are available but require the use of the strong anticoagulant warfarin compared to biological valve replacement (from pigs or cows) which only require daily aspirin. Doesn’t surprise me that artificial hearts never became popular for permanent replacement.
“I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.“ (from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
I would have guessed Silence of the Lambs.
Paul WInchell, ventriloquist and kids-show TV host, held a number of parents for mechanical, implantable hearts. He donated his patent to Jarvik's team at Utah .
It is always a poignant reminder to me of our human vulnerabilities when someone famous in the medical world becomes afflicted with an incurable degenerative disease like Parkinson's.
One time I was living in an apartment building. My upstairs neighbor, who I didn't know, came down and asked to use my phone. This was back in the landline days. It was quiet in the apartment and as he stood there holding the receiver to his head waiting for someone to answer his call, I heard this rhythmic clicking noise. I couldn't tell what it was or where it was coming from. Nobody answered and my neighbor put the receiver down. The clicking continued. I said to him, "What's that fucking clicking? Do you her that?"
He said, "I have an artificial heart valve."
Yes, Michelle, that is sad. I remember when Dr. Christian Bernard, who performed the world’s first heart transplant, had to retire from surgery because of arthritis.
“Paul WInchell, ventriloquist and kids-show TV host, held a number of parents for mechanical, implantable hearts.”
That’s kidnapping, man!
The artificial heart was the plot device for one of the best Star Trek TNG episodes.
The new Picard series carries it one step further by giving him an entire android body.
But it's an example of how reality out shoots scifi: much more likely now that replacement organs or bodies of the future will be cloned from you.
JSM
The athletic field at a high school near my home is named after a "Barney Swinehart," which may account for my disremembering the exact details.
"Even with heart valve replacement, artificial valves are available but require the use of the strong anticoagulant warfarin...."
The University of Wisconsin rat poison!
They were experimenting with transplanting baboon hearts into humans at Loma Linda in the 80's. I still remember a joke I heard back then.
What's the fastest thing on 2 wheels?
A baboon on a bicycle going past Loma Linda Hospital.
He was cute!
The obituary you linked to mentions that one of the reasons the artificial heart was controversial was its cost - $54,000 in today's money. Holy cow! I have patients who take monthly injections for rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis that cost more than that per injection. Last week, I had a cardiac ablation to try to treat my atrial fibrillation. The billed cost? $197,000. And no one bats an eye. My how things have changed.
One Savant who was not an idiot?
I was just dinking around on the interwebs last week, reading this and that about the development of artificial hearts - can't remember what led me to the subject. Huh. Well, thank you for your contributions, Jarvik.
This is a morning for odd coincidences for me - apparently vos Savant, who I always assumed created her surname out of whole cloth, really did have a hereditary claim to it; it was her mother's last name. She herself took it because she said male children should take their fathers' last names and female children their mothers,' which (here's the coincidence) is exactly what my husband and I did.
It was his idea. When I was pregnant with our first, he said, tongue only about half in cheek, that it wasn't fair that I, who had kept my maiden name, should get to retain my individuality whereas he would have to be linked to all our kids, so he proposed this solution. I shrugged and went, "Whatever."
Our first was a boy, so no huhu, in the immortal words of Manny from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. I didn't know whether my husband was going to stick to his guns until the time came to complete the birth certificate for our second, a girl; he did. Our daughter had a fun time in school pretending to be unrelated to her brothers. And we have some friends of twenty years who only figured out a couple of years ago, when we were talking about our thirtieth anniversary coming up, that we didn't have a "his, hers, and theirs" situation going on.
My school psychologist sister says she's only encountered one other family in all her years who have done this.
I knew a guy who would pull his scrotum out the fly of his pants and squeeze the base rhythmically to make it throb like a beating heart. He put a drunken picture of himself doing that on one of those family photo “Merry Christmas” cards with the inscription “The Human Heart.”
Now there’s a true genius who actually bridged the gap between the bio-mechanics of Robert Jarvik and the ventriloquism of Paul Winchell.
I remember Marilyn Vos Savant for the Monty Hall Problem:
“Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?”
Of course you switch. The problem and solution went viral. MVS had to keep explaining column after column.
To check up on Leslie Graves's exclamation, I looked up Jarvik just now. I personally don't find him cute. But my image search quickly pulled up an image of him holding his artificial heart, and I'm wondering why on earth it's "flesh"-colored.
I wonder how many guys who read Wince's comment will try that at home.
There are artificial dog balls on the market for owners who want their dog neutered but also want him to appear to be packing a loaded scrotum. They're called Neuticles. I don't think they make ones that throb.
Just be careful of the zipper teeth with all that loose skin. As they say, don’t try this at home.
What loose skin?
Interesting story. Did not know about his connection to Marilyn. I recall from years ago when she had articles in Parade magazine. She had big time brain power.Yuge, I tell ya.
Wince said...
I knew a guy who would pull his scrotum out the fly of his pants and squeeze the base rhythmically to make it throb like a beating heart. He put a drunken picture of himself doing that on one of those family photo “Merry Christmas” cards with the inscription “The Human Heart.”
------------
Wince said...
I knew a guy who would pull his scrotum out the fly of his pants and squeeze the base rhythmically to make it throb like a beating heart. He put a drunken picture of himself doing that on one of those family photo “Merry Christmas” cards with the inscription “The Human Heart.”
----------
Try PornHub old man.
The fact that you watched that, encouraged that, and thought to share here shows you are lacking sexually...
Like eating bologna when there is a much much finer cut of meat out there to consume.
(I still think Jeremy Freese sockpuppets are animating a lot of the "regulars" on your blog.)
Bob Boyd said...
I wonder how many guys who read Wince's comment will try that at home.
There are artificial dog balls on the market for owners who want their dog neutered but also want him to appear to be packing a loaded scrotum. They're called Neuticles. I don't think they make ones that throb.
---------------
Cmon... give em a picture so they'll stop pulling at themselves, ann and trying to get a rise out of you...
They're all against "castrating the kids!" but into weird shit like this? So sad. I wonder if any of your regulars ever get off anymore???
The University of Wisconsin rat poison!
-----------
Back before they were photoshopping blacks into the crowd pictures...
How long can you ride a strong academic reputation before you admit.. UW is not what it once was? Be honest?
Last week, I had a cardiac ablation to try to treat my atrial fibrillation. The billed cost? $197,000. And no one bats an eye. My how things have changed.
5/31/25, 8:07 AM
------------
Imagine if old/sick people had to pay for their health care how much we'd be incentivized to stay health, learn healthy habits and worship health over money/power in this country.
Artificiality got us here, and cost shifting. The younger people from other generations are fed up and it shows...
My wife's (late) younger brother was the youngest (like two years old) recipient of open heart surgery to date, back in the early 60s. He was in the medical journals as David R. He had several more surgeries through his life and lived to be 31.
My friend Bob spent the last six months of his life in bed in the CICU, waiting for a donor match that never came. He liked to brag that he was becoming an android.
I had a-fib ablation in 2020, but don't recall how much it cost since I didn't pay. I'm sure it was high five or into six figures, and seems to have worked, unlike the one my little brother had lately.
I didn't believe her Monty Hall answer either, but eventually figured it out and made a quick little computer model and ran it a thousand times. Yep.
The reason Monty Hall is so hard to understand is that the explanation they give is usually overcomplicated and too abstract.
If you pick one of three doors, the chance that the prize is behind one of the other doors is 2/3. If they show you an empty door there. they didn't pick that empty door at random, obviously. So the odds haven't changed, it's still a 2/3 chance that it is in one of those two doors, and you now know which one.
The reason I had such difficulty with it at first was that the explanation I was given suggested that the odds changed with added information, which is a non-intuitive way to look at it. It's like the explanation is designed to maintain the confusion.
I ran into this problem in college in a class in statistics and probabilities, which was probably my favorite class... They gave an explanation that said a bunch of things that were true, but didn't flow as an argument, it was "word thinking" that just happened to match the truth. So I ended up writing a simulation in Turbo Pascal (different times) because the word thinking explanation never made sense. I never would have bothered with a simulation had it been presented in the way I just did above.
Shortest answer:
Each door has a 1/3 chance. Formula for the probability it's in the other two doors used to be 1/3 + 1/3 = 2/3, but now that you know one is empty the formula, to is 0 + 2/3 = 2/3. Your door remains 1/3, obviously take the other door. No simulation needed.
It's interesting to me that joints like the hip, ankle, elbow, knee, shoulder, and wrist can be replaced by artificial implants, but organs like the heart, liver, pancreas, and kidney require transplants from humans. does it have something to do with the complexity of organ function? Maybe immunity issues arise more readily? Grok told me:
"Joints like the hip, ankle, elbow, knee, shoulder, and wrist can be replaced with artificial implants because they primarily serve mechanical functions, such as enabling movement and bearing weight. These functions can be effectively mimicked by biocompatible materials like titanium, ceramics, or polymers, which are designed to replicate the structure and motion of natural joints. Artificial joint implants focus on restoring biomechanical properties, such as stability and range of motion, without needing to perform complex biochemical or metabolic tasks. Advances in materials science and engineering have made it possible to create durable, wear-resistant implants that integrate well with surrounding bone and tissue, often lasting decades with minimal immune rejection.
Organs like the heart, liver, pancreas, and kidney, however, perform intricate physiological and biochemical functions that artificial implants cannot yet fully replicate."
So there.
Wince,That guy could have made bank appearing at cardiology conventions.
Wow, her name was Savant. How ridiculously appropriate. I wonder if she joked to people that she was the non-idiot Savant.
That can't be her real name, but it reminds me of Carl Sagan, and "Sagan" was his real name, well, the name his father chose after moving here from Russia.
@Jaq: Yes, your shortest answer is the simplest. The reason it’s so hard for people to understand is because the probability changes with new information. In the beginning each door has 1/3 chance of being the correct door.. When Monty Hall opens one of the doors with a goat behind it, then the remaining door the contestant did not choose has a 2/3 chance of being the correct door. And for the person just coming into the game, not knowing what has taken place, each of the remaining 2 doors has a 50% chance of being the correct door.
I know Vos Savant only from her columns in one of those 'magazines' that appear or did appear in Sunday newspapers. I always figured she was an anonymous staff writer.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.