Barney Clark's Jarvik 7 heart on view in Smithsonian "Treasures" exhibition

Twenty-five years ago, in 1982, Seattle dentist Barney Clark became the first recipient of a Jarvik 7 artificial heart. Clark survived for 112 days after his natural heart was removed and replaced with the Jarvik 7. In January, the Jarvik 7 that pumped blood through Clark’s body—a compressed-air machine made of polyurethane, polyester, plastic and aluminum—went on view in the Smithsonian's "Treasures of American History" exhibition after its inventor, Robert Jarvik, loaned it to the National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center.

The Jarvik 7 captured the world’s attention in 1982 "because of its symbolic meaning that technology was trying to save our lives," Jarvik explained during a special ceremony.

The Jarvik 7 was noisy and required a patient to be permanently connected to a large console with tubes through the skin. It is worlds apart from a second device Jarvik donated to the Smithsonian in January, a modern Jarvik 2000 FlowMaker, an electric-motor-driven machine that assists the heart’s left ventricle in pumping blood.

The Jarvik 2000 "is the size of a C-cell battery, is quiet and its user has complete mobility," Jarvik said. "More important, rather than having to remove a patient's natural heart, the 2000 can rehabilitate and restore the function of a weak heart." One recipient of the Jarvik 2000 has been living with his for 6½ years.

Whenever technology is involved, Jarvik said, advances come about, in part, because "inventors are able to work with tools that people prior to them never had." For example, since 1982, several key breakthroughs have been made that facilitated the invention of the Jarvik 2000, "such as the development of very high strength magnets that exceed the magnetic strength and permanence of previous magnets."

With the magnets available in the early 1980s, "you just couldn’t make a motor" like that used in the Jarvik 2000, which "has a big space between the windings of the motor and the magnet to allow blood to pass through," Jarvik pointed out. "Also, some of the biomaterials used in the Jarvik 2000, particularly to coat the electric leads, didn’t exist" until recently.

And finally, Jarvik said, the Jarvik 2000 is so quiet that a patient does not hear or feel or think about it. Its battery pack allows its user mobility and the freedom to live a truly normal life. When the Jarvik 7 was making headlines in 1982, Jarvik notes, such a concept for an artificial heart like the 2000 "really hadn't been created" yet either.