The artificial kidney in North America: George Murray and the Canadian connection

Approximately 50 years after the Scottish chemist Thomas Graham described the process of selective diffusion in solutions (dialysis) in 1861, a Johns Hopkins University team led by John J. Abel purified animal blood using celloidin membranes. Termed "vividiffusion" by Abel, these limited but successful experiments were abandoned in 1914. The most successful artificial kidney machine was later devised by Willem J. Kolff in Holland during the early 1940s; this basic design later developed into a commercially successful venture in America. Other mechanical hemodialysis equipment was also invented, such as that of Canadian surgeon George Murray (1894-1976), who devised the first artificial kidney machine in North America in 1946. Blood to be filtered was gently pumped through a vertical helical coil of cellulose acetate tubing (the dialyzing membrane) placed in a salt-buffered tapwater solution. Four patients were treated in this manner, all of whose blood was purified; however, two of this group later died due to chronic kidney problems. Murray's artificial kidney was never developed commercially owing to Kolff's more efficacious design and, it is contended here, due to the failure of Canadians to capitalize on domestic technological innovations. It is also suggested that as it is an example of simultaneous invention, a further exploration of the artificial kidney might reveal insights into the historical development of modern medical technology.