| American physician, born
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, known for saving the lives of "blue babies."
She studied at the medical schools at Harvard, Boston, and Johns Hopkins
universities, receiving an M.D. degree in 1927. She became interested
in rheumatic diseases and other heart disorders in children and, with
Alfred Blalock, developed a surgical technique to alleviate the "blue-baby"
condition, or cyanosis, caused by a congenital cardiac malformation that
prevents complete circulation of the blood to the lungs. After 1944, when
the first Blalock-Taussig operation was developed, many blue babies were
saved from invalidism or death. |