Because the heart functions primarily as a pump to keep blood circulating through the body, medical researchers have long attempted to develop a mechanical pump to take over its job in the event of damage or disease. In 1935 the French-born surgeon Alexis Carrel, and famed American aviator Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974), designed a perfusion pump that kept excised organs, including the heart, alive by circulating blood through them. News reports called this device an "artificial" or "robot" heart. The first total artificial heart (TAH) was implanted in 1957 in a dog at the Cleveland Clinic by Willem Kolff, a Dutch-born surgeon, and Tetsuzo Akutsu. Kolff later led a medical team at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City in developing the artificial heart. At the urging of another TAH pioneer, Michael DeBakey (1908-), the United States government, through the National Institutes of Health, established an Artificial Heart...