Artificial kidney machine, France, 1955

Rotating coil artificial kidney machine, Necker Hospital model, effectively a French-manufactured Kolff-Brigham type, made by Societe Usifroid, Paris, c.1955, and used from that date at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London.

This was one of the first generation of successful kidney dialysis machines used to remove waste products from the blood when the kidneys failed. The maker Societé Usifroid had made this type of machine for the Necker Hospital in Paris, France. The model was imported from France and used at the Hammersmith Hospital, London from 1955 onwards. Patients with acute kidney failure caused by poisoning were treated with this machine. Dialysis was developed by Wilhelm Kolff (b. 1911) in German-occupied Holland during the Second World War.