Long term extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)

Credit for the concept of an artificial lung belongs to Robert Hooke (1635–1703) who in 1667, at the conclusion of a paper on lung function read to the Royal Society, wrote: ‘I propose to expose the blood of an animal to fresh air in a vessel, and return the blood, to see if this will not suffice for the life of the animal … and determine what benefit this may be to mankinde’. It is not known whether or not this experiment was actually performed but we now know that the direct blood-gas interface of such a system would have been the limiting factor, the benefits of artificial oxygenation being outweighed after a few hours by blood damage and by gaseous microembolism.