The terrible heart condition in newborns was common enough to have its own name – “blue baby syndrome” – for the noticeably bluish tone the skin takes on when blood fails to circulate through the entire body. Vivien Thomas, a noted cardiac surgeon at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland thought he had a solution. The problem lay in a constricted pulmonary artery that pushed blood past the lungs, and Thomas had previously developed a procedure to re-connect the arteries to increase blood flow to the lungs for another purpose. Thomas thought his procedure could be adapted to treat the syndrome as well.

On this day November 29, 1944, a small, frail child was wheeled into an operating room at the Johns Hopkins Hospital for the first attempt to treat the blue baby syndrome, known scientifically as Tetralogy of Fallot.

Thomas, an African American, was working at Johns Hopkins when society was still deeply segregated. He was not allowed to operate on patients directly, so he gave directions to his assistant, fellow surgeon Alfred Bialock. They tried the procedure twice more on children of six and 11 years of age, both ending in success. Their breakthrough was published in medical journals and paved the way for open-heart surgery later on.