Alfred Blalock

Alfred Blalock married Mary Chambers O'Bryan on 25 October 1930. They had three children: William Rice, Mary Elizabeth, and Alfred Dandy. They remained married until, Mary’s death in 1958.

In 1959, Blalock married Alice Waters, a close neighbour, remaining married till his death.

On September 15, 1964, Alfred Blalock died of cancer, at the age of 65.

Alfred Blalock was born on April 5, 1899, in the small town of Culloden in Georgia, USA. His father, George Zadock Blalock, was a cotton plantation owner and a merchant. He was a strict disciplinarian, laying great importance on education. His mother was Martha Blalock nee Davis.

Alfred was born eldest of his parents’ five children; two of his younger siblings being Elizabeth and Edgar. A gentle child with a charming smile, he was very diligent in his studies, refusing to go to bed unless he had perfected his homework. He respected his father very much.

When he was eleven years old, due to his father’s illness, the family moved to nearby town of Jonesboro to take advantage of its better medical facilities. Here he studied at the local school up to grade nine, thereafter moving to Georgia Military School (now Woodward Academy) at fourteen.

In the fall of 1915, Alfred entered Georgia University directly as a sophomore, skipping his freshman year. Along with receiving good grades, he also enjoyed a vibrant social life at the University.

In his senior year, he became associate editor of the year book; later the secretary and treasurer of the senior class. A good tennis player, he regularly participated in college tournaments. He was also a member of the college debating society, junior cabinet, and the Sigma Chi fraternity.

By now, Alfred Blalock had realized that his skill lay in surgery and therefore on receiving his MD degree, he first tried to obtain surgical residency at Johns Hopkins. Since surgical internship was awarded on the basis of class standing, he failed to obtain one. Nonetheless, he decided to wait.

He began working as a House Medical Officer-Urology under Hugh Hampton Young, doing sufficiently well to earn an Assistant Residency in the General Surgical Service in 1923. Unfortunately, he failed to obtain a reappointment in the following year, a fact that he could never reconcile with.

In July 1924, he became an Extern in Otolaryngology, working, among other topics, on regeneration of the recurrent laryngeal nerves of dogs. It led to the publication of his first paper, ‘The Effects of Changes in Hydrogen Ion Concentration on the Blood Flow of Morphinized Dogs’ (1925).

In September 1925, Alfred Blalock moved to the newly reorganized School of Medicine at Vanderbilt, Nashville as Chief Residency in Surgery. He had initially hoped to be put be in charge of the surgical pathology laboratory, but was placed in the experimental laboratory.

In 1926, he published his second paper ‘Partial Tracheal Obstruction, An Experimental Study on the Effects on the Circulation and Respiration of Morphinized Dogs’. Thereafter, he started working on hemorrhage and trauma and its effect on the circulation of dogs.

In 1927, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake for one year stay. On his recovery in 1928, he went to Cambridge, England, where he worked in the Department of Physiology, returning to Vanderbilt later in the same year as Assistant Professor of Surgery.

On his return, Blalock began his studies on the medical condition of shock and its effect on the oxygen content of blood. In 1930, he was promoted to the post of Associate Professor. With increased responsibilities Blalock felt he needed a new lab assistant and found it in a black carpenter named Vivien Thomas.

Although officially appointed as a janitor, Thomas started working as a lab technician, quickly learning surgical procedures. Very soon, he also learned how to carry out experiments, and record data for Blalock's research. Slowly, Blalock began to grant Thomas more autonomy.