At St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston in 1969, heart surgeon Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart in a patient, keeping him alive for nearly three days until a donor was found. In 1982 at the University of Utah Medical Center, Dr. William DeVries put the first permanent artificial heart in a patient. The device cost $16,450.

Photograph by Claudio Onorati/epa/Corbis