The first artificial heart valve was implanted in 1952 and used a tiny plastic ball to alternately open and close the blood flow.
One problem was that when patients opened their mouths, clicks from the valve were annoyingly loud.
The first artificial heart was made of Dacron and was in a Texas man’s chest in 1969. He died four days later.
These days, artificial hearts are much better and they work for much longer too, enabling patients to survive till they get a donor heart.
