AV Fistula Inventor Kenneth Appell Salutes Hemodyalisis Inventor Willem Kolff

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One of the great medical innovators of the past century died yesterday in Philadelphia, three days short of his 98th birthday. More recently known also as one of the designers of the artificial heart implanted in Dr. Barney Clark in 1982, Dr. Kolff was born in the Netherlands and began his attempts to design an artificial kidney 70 years ago during the Nazi occupation of his country. He moved to the U.S. in 1950, and did more of his seminal work at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Utah.

Upon learning of Dr. Kolff's passing, his fellow kidney dialysis pioneer Kenneth Charles Appell commented, "A great man, whose contribution was necessary to the whole concept of hemodialysis. There had been work done on artificial kidneys before Kolff came along, but he refined the work and translated it into a useable machine that became the basis for all the equipment in use today.

Unfortunately, I never got to meet him, but from a personal standpoint I'm grateful -- without Willem Kolff's machines there wouldn't have been any reason for my own work, no way of using the AV fistula. And -- age 98, eh? Good for him!"