Given that it is Valentine's Day, we are taking a short break from our series on forensics and poisoning. (Granted, a number of those poisonings were, themselves, "affairs of the heart!") Today, we celebrate the history of cardiac care, and of Cleveland, where so many of those innovations began.
In the 1930s, Western Reserve surgeon Claude Beck perfected operations to improve heart circulation. That might not seem like a feat, but when you understand the circumstances, it becomes a matter of life and death.
When Beck performed cardiac surgery, the heart sometimes went into ventricular fibrillation--in other words, heart muscles twitched...