The First Ductus Revisited

To the Editor: The recent reprint of Gross and Hubbard's landmark account of the first successful ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus 1 and Richard Warren's commentary 2 reminded me that I had taken a photograph at the time of the operation but that no picture of this notable event had ever been published. With this in mind, I retrieved the original negative, and the resulting print is shown as Figure 1. I recall that before the operation John Hubbard asked several "outsiders" to see the patient (a seven-year-old girl) to assure his chief (Dr. Kenneth Blackfan) that this was a reasonable venture. . . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.