Dialysis Museum

[okarol]

Displays the dialysis equipment beginning with the First Dialysis Machine — 1943: Kolff Rotating Drum
to the "Automated Peritoneal Dialysis Cycler" introduced in 1984.
http://www.homedialysis.org/learn/museum/

[Epoman]

Displays the dialysis equipment beginning with the First Dialysis Machine — 1943: Kolff Rotating Drum
to the "Automated Peritoneal Dialysis Cycler" introduced in 1984.
http://www.homedialysis.org/learn/museum.php

It really puts things in perspective looking how far dialysis has come huh? Imagine another 30 years from now. Hopefully 30 years from now the NxStage System One Cycler will be on display and people will think "Wow how archaic" 

- Epoman

[AlasdairUK]

When I read the subject title, I thought you had been to my old clinic as a kid. 

It just shows how things have come forward over time and will continue to develop. I'm currently on HDF and I think it is the best form of dialysis I have had.

[nextnoel]

Thanks - very interesting article.

[livecam]

Good thing we are living now instead of "then".  Some pretty scarey looking stuff there from the past.  You wouldn't have used alot of that stuff 3X a week.

[okarol]

Here's another site that has some interesting info.
The early development of dialysis and transplantation
http://renux.dmed.ed.ac.uk/EdREN/Unitbits/historyweb/HDWorld.html

[MyssAnne]

Wow. All that information makes me appreciative of what we have now. Thanks, Karol! You find the neatest information!

[okarol]

Wow - this guy collect unusual stuff - anyone got a Kolff rotating drum dialysis machine (ca 1943) lying around?
http://www.collectmedicalantiques.com/wish.html

[livecam]

There is a museum in Rothenburg Germany called "The Museum of Punishment and Torture".  It is full of various torture and containment devices from the middle ages when that was the accepted way of handling bad guys.

I saw that place before starting dialysis.  It looked so bad that we just walked in the front door and looked around but decided not to go any further.

Now I'm not sure which instruments are really worse...the 800 year old ones or the ones used today 3X a week in a medical setting.

[okarol]

 
The museum begins with equipment from 1943. No updated machines, like NxStage. 

[pelagia]

Displays the dialysis equipment beginning with the First Dialysis Machine — 1943: Kolff Rotating Drum
to the "Automated Peritoneal Dialysis Cycler" introduced in 1984.
http://www.homedialysis.org/learn/museum/

I need a slash at the end of the url to get there:

http://www.homedialysis.org/learn/museum/

The more recent advances, like NxStage are at this link:

http://www.homedialysis.org/learn/equipment/

[okarol]

Thanks, I had changed the link because it ended .php which didn't work (it use to work..?) 

[Chris]

I wish there was updated information on the museum site. Doesn't sem to have been updated over the years. I wish there was more information too on each product.

[nursewratchet]

I have a book, put out by BAXTER,  about the History of Dialysis.  There is also a video.  It's fascinating, and scary.  It's amazing to me that people actually underwent the process, to see it.  You can't see in this article, but that big drum actually turned through an open trough, that contained "the bath".  The "Safety Check" was to pour a cup of blood into the tubing, turn the drum a few times, and if blood showed in the bath, there was a leak in the tubing!!!  I'm not sure where they got the blood, as there was no EPO, and anemia was so prevalent back then.  The access was an open line in the arm, there were no catheters then, and no internal vascular access in the arm.  People were also put to sleep for the process.

[Chris]

I have a book, put out by BAXTER,  about the History of Dialysis.  There is also a video.  It's fascinating, and scary.  It's amazing to me that people actually underwent the process, to see it.  You can't see in this article, but that big drum actually turned through an open trough, that contained "the bath".  The "Safety Check" was to pour a cup of blood into the tubing, turn the drum a few times, and if blood showed in the bath, there was a leak in the tubing!!!  I'm not sure where they got the blood, as there was no EPO, and anemia was so prevalent back then.  The access was an open line in the arm, there were no catheters then, and no internal vascular access in the arm.  People were also put to sleep for the process.

Ok, I'm odd, but I am fascinated at medical stuff and history. I would like to see the book and video, can people order it from Baxter?

[nursewratchet]

I'll ask my BAXTER rep for some copies if he has some.  If not, I'll see about ordering it\them.  It's really interesting. 

[Chris]

I'll ask my BAXTER rep for some copies if he has some.  If not, I'll see about ordering it\them.  It's really interesting. 

Thanks nursewratchet.
(I remember reading your name from post, but my memory can't remember it right now )

[okarol]

This image from the archives of LIFE magazine, which first appeared on April 28, 1947

A Life Saving invention - the History of the Kidney Dialysis

In 1943, Kolff's invention, although crude, was completed. During the course of the next two years, he treated 16 patients with acute kidney failure but had little success. All that changed in 1945, when a 67-year-old woman in uremic coma regained consciousness after 11 hours of hemodialysis with Kolff's dialyzer. Her first words? "I'm going to divorce my husband!" Thanks to Kolff, she did in fact follow through on her plan and lived seven more years before dying of another ailment.

Kolff's machine is considered the first modern drum dialyzer, and it remained the standard for the next decade. At the time of its creation, Kolff's goal was to help kidneys recover. The brave doctor had no way of knowing that his invention was one of the foremost life-saving developments in the history of modern medicine.

After World War II ended, Kolff donated the five artificial kidneys he'd made to hospitals around the world, including Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. Because of this unselfish act, doctors in many countries were able to learn about the practice of dialysis.

[Stoday]

I managed to find and buy a copy of the book to which Nurse Wratchet refers.

It is most interesting; one of the earliest experimental dialisers used sausage skin as a membrane. 

[okarol]

More info about early dialysis and the creator, Willem J. Kolff 1911 - 2009 http://www.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottlibrary/menuitem.ef20a2517b2174c01a3b9cdbc1e916b9/?vgnextoid=06c17fb4f0b6f110VgnVCM1000001c9e619bRCRD

[okarol]

More history:
The birth of home dialysis http://historyofnephrology.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html

and
Milton Roy kidney machine, United States, 1966
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=5171