Helen B. Taussig, MD: A Pioneer in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Congenital Heart Disease
Image via John Hopkins
“Learn to listen with your fingers.”
Welcome to our Lesser-Known Women Who Made Medical History series. During the following months, we’ll be taking a look at a few lesser-known female doctors who made an impact on the medical world.
Helen B. Taussig was not only known as one of the developers of the "blue baby" operation, she was also a champion of women in medicine, working her way up the ranks at Johns Hopkins and eventually becoming the school of medicine’s second female professor.
Dr. Taussig was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1898. After receiving her A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1921, she sought medical training in Boston. However, at the time, neither Harvard nor Boston University would grant medical degrees to women. Dr. Taussig said of the experience, “It was one of those times in life when what seemed to be disappointment...later proved to be a great opportunity.”
Johns Hopkins
That great opportunity turned out to be the historically-coeducational Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she earned her MD in 1927, and where she would remain for the rest of her career.
She served as an Archibald Fellow in Medicine at Johns Hopkins and worked at the heart station from 1927 until 1928. From 1928 until 1930, she interned in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1930, professor of pediatrics Edwards A. Park appointed Dr. Taussig physician-in-charge of the Harriet Lane Cardiac Clinic, a position she held until 1963.
Dr. Taussig began serving on the faculty of the school of medicine in 1930, becoming the school’s second female professor, and in 1963 she became professor emeritus of pediatrics.
Congenital Heart Disease
Dr. Taussig was a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart disease. Her most famous quote, “learn to listen with your fingers”, derived from her ability to feel—rather than simply listen—to her tiny patients’ heartbeats.
After being appointed by Edwards Park to head his rheumatic fever clinic In 1930, the clinic soon shifted its focus to congenital heart disease. “Congenital abnormalities were the last thing in the world I expected to be interested in. I started with a busy rheumatic clinic...It fell on me—or I fell on it,” Dr. Taussig said while being interviewed in 1980.
Dr. Taussig began work on a comprehensive treatise called Congenital Malformations of the Heart, which she eventually published in 1947. As she saw more and more patients suffering from Tetralogy of Fallot, she realized that a lack of blood flow to the lungs was causing their symptoms.
This prompted Dr. Taussig to help develop the surgical procedure commonly known as the “blue baby” operation. Although accounts vary as to the origins of the operation, Dr. Taussig recalled getting the idea from a conversation in 1943 with surgeon Alfred Blalock and pediatrician-in-chief Edwards Park. Park asked Blalock if the carotid artery could be used as a bypass to repair a coarctation. Dr. Taussig, thinking of the blue baby problem (now known as cyanotic heart disease), interjected, “If you could put the carotid artery into the descending aorta, couldn’t you put the subclavian artery into the pulmonary artery?”
Blalock and Vivien Thomas, assistant to Blalock and a laboratory supervisor who developed a procedure used to treat the syndrome, consulted with Dr. Taussig as they developed the procedure in their lab. Dr. Taussig was responsible for diagnosis, pre-, and post-operative care of the delicate patients.
Vivien Thomas would later say of Dr. Taussig, “Helen passionately described her patients and their plight and that no known medical treatment existed. She went on to suggest that their only hope was a type of surgical approach to ‘get more blood to the lungs, as a plumber changes the pipes around.’”
Within a year, the operation now known as the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt had been performed on more that 200 patients at Hopkins, with parents bringing their children from thousands of miles away. In 1945, wanting to share their success, Taussig and Blalock published a joint paper on the first three blue baby operations. The success of the procedure ultimately attracted many patients to Johns Hopkins for treatment, and also brought many physicians to train there.
Thalidomide
Dr. Taussig also discovered the teratological effects of the drug thalidomide when administered to pregnant women. Thalidomide, marketed as a sedative, was being taken by many pregnant women in Europe to combat morning sickness and nausea. The drug was released as an over-the-counter medication in 1957, and by the early 1960s, thousands of babies had been born with thalidomide-related birth defects. Only 40% of these children survived.
“Gentlemen, I am not a pharmacologist and I may not even be a brilliant physiologist, but I think if any of you would have had a child or a grandchild with this malformation, you’d be doing everything you could to prevent its happening again. That’s why I’m here today.”
Her testimony before the United States Congress was critical in banning the drug in the US, and spurred President Kennedy and the FDA to develop new drug testing programs to analyze the effects of pharmaceuticals on congenital defects.
Soon after, Congress passed the Kefauver-Harris Amendment, which required more oversight for clinical studies, including informed consent by patients in the studies and scientific evidence of the drug’s effectiveness, not just its safety.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Taussig received international recognition and honors for her contributions to medicine both at home and abroad, including the Italian Feltrinelli Prize, the French Chevalier Légion d'Honneur, the Peruvian Presidential Medal of Honor, the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, and the United States of America Medal of Freedom.
She is remembered as a pioneer of pediatric cardiology and a champion of children everywhere.
This story was made possible by the Johns Hopkins Medical Archives.