A LIFE RECLAIMED: THE DAWN OF DIALYSIS

   With her tissues oversaturated with toxins that triggered periodic convulsions, Ellie’s chances of survival looked grim. She had ingested insecticide in a desperate attempt to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Could the dialysis unit—which had failed in previous trials so far—succeed in saving her life?

  On the morning of October 6, 1946, inside the Toronto General Hospital, a grim silence hung over Ward H. Dr. Van Wyck, a stout, balding man of 56 and the newly appointed chief of obstetrics and gynaecology, stood at the foot of a hospital bed. Surrounding him were several assistants, their eyes drawn to the motionless woman lying before them. Her name was Ellie Anderson.

  Once vibrant and full of life, 26-year-old Ellie now lay unconscious, her body bloated, her skin pale and doughy. She had fallen into a deep uremic coma, the tragic consequence of a desperate act. Pregnant and unmarried, Ellie had attempted to end her pregnancy by ingesting a household disinfectant. The attempt left her with a massive infection and irreversible kidney damage. For nine days, her condition worsened. Her kidneys, the organs responsible for filtering waste from the blood, had shut down. Her body, poisoned by toxins, had begun to convulse.

  Dr. Van Wyck scanned her chart and shook his head slowly. The treatments they had tried—glucose drips, antibiotics—had all failed. Time was running out.

  "Any suggestions?" he asked, turning to the other doctors in the room.

  It was Jenny Lawrence, the hospital's first female resident, who stepped forward. "Sir," she said cautiously, "what about that machine Dr. Murrey built?"

  At the time, Dr. Jordon Murrey was something of a legend in Toronto’s medical circles. A renowned surgeon and pioneering researcher, Murrey had dedicated years to developing an artificial kidney—an odd-looking device designed to cleanse blood outside the body when kidneys failed. Though the machine had shown promise in animal trials, it had never been tested on a human. Many physicians dismissed it as a pipe dream, little more than an assembly of sausage skin and tubing.

  But Van Wyck knew they had no alternatives. Ellie was slipping away. "This girl is dying," he said. "There's nothing to lose—and possibly her life to gain."

  Moments later, he was on the phone with Dr. Murrey, inviting him to try his invention on a terminal patient. The answer came without hesitation. "All right," said Murrey. "We’ll see what we can do."

  Jordon Murrey's journey into medicine began far from the gleaming corridors of Toronto General. Raised near Edmonton, Alberta, he had been inspired by his mother, who once stitched up a gash in his scalp with a sewing needle and thread. He was fascinated by the mystery of life, mesmerized as a child by the web of tiny veins in a fertilized egg. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1920, he trained under the world’s finest surgeons in England and later worked in New York before returning home.

  Murrey was a man of many talents. He contributed to heart surgeries for "blue babies," pioneered tendon repairs for flat feet, and even explored kidney transplants. But he was also a man easily criticized. Some colleagues believed he should’ve specialized more. Yet Murrey saw the bigger picture, and it was that holistic view that led him to one of medicine’s greatest inventions.

  His work with blood vessels exposed him to a recurring problem: patients often died from blood clots during surgery. That led him to collaborate with chemists to improve the anticoagulant heparin. After years of refining, they made it safe for humans. Heparin revolutionized surgery—and it gave Murrey a new idea.

  If blood could be kept from clotting, perhaps it could be filtered outside the body. Murrey envisioned a device that would allow damaged kidneys to rest while a machine took over their duties. But finding the right material was a challenge. He tried everything—animal skins, nylon, even Ivanon—before settling on cellophane, the kind used in sausage casings. Its tiny pores were perfect: large enough to let waste molecules pass through, small enough to hold blood cells.

  Over time, his artificial kidney took shape. It consisted of 45 meters of cellophane tubing, coiled around a wire mesh cylinder and submerged in an 18-liter vat of dialysate. Blood would travel through the tubing, its toxins diffusing into the surrounding solution before the cleansed blood returned to the body. He tested it on dogs with remarkable success.

  Murrey had poured over $12,000 of his own money into the project, building early versions in his basement before moving to lab space at the Banting Institute. He was joined by Dr. Edmund Delorme, chemist Newell Thomas, and Ivan Ferguson, a fourth-year medical student who learned to prepare the dialysate solution. Many residents scoffed at the effort. But that changed when Van Wyck called.

  That same day, the machine was assembled in an empty room in Ward H. Murrey bustled around like a conductor preparing for a symphony. He briefed nurses, walked lab techs through hourly testing procedures, and reviewed every detail with Van Wyck and his son Ralph, a staff gynecologist. Cora Weaver, a young nurse just out of school, later recalled the excitement buzzing through the hospital.

  That evening, Ellie was wheeled in, her dark hair splayed across a pillow, her body jerking involuntarily. She was so deeply unconscious that anesthesia wasn’t needed. As Murrey raised his scalpel, Ivan Ferguson snapped a photograph. “It felt like history,” he later said.

  Murrey moved swiftly. He opened the femoral vein in Ellie’s left thigh and inserted a catheter, then did the same on the right side, threading a second catheter up to the vena cava near her heart. Heparin was injected into both the bloodstream and the machine. When the dialyzer was activated, dark red blood began its journey through the cellophane coils. After passing through an air trap, the filtered blood returned to Ellie’s body.

  The room watched in awe. Though no one could see the toxins escaping into the dialysate, the chemistry lab would measure their removal. After an hour, lab reports showed only 330 milligrams of urea had been removed. Worse, Ellie’s pulse quickened, her temperature dropped, and she began shivering. Concerned she might succumb to hypothermia, Murrey shut off the machine.

  By morning, her temperature stabilized and she showed slight improvement. But the next night, she deteriorated again. Murrey suspected the tubing. This time, the team cleaned it meticulously, washing it with distilled water and blood solution to maintain the delicate balance of electrolytes. Ferguson mixed a fresh dialysate batch, adjusting potassium, calcium, and sugar levels.

  Once again, the machine was connected. This time, there was no crisis—just a quiet hum and slow progress. "The tissues were saturated with poisons," Murrey would write later. "Purification had to be continued for a long time."

  He stayed by her side through the night, eyes on hourly lab reports. Word of the operation spread, and staff from all over the hospital peered through the window, astonished to see blood circulating outside a human body.

  Hours passed. Ellie’s color improved. Her breathing became steady. Suddenly, she thrashed in the bed, her eyes snapping open. Nurses rushed to hold her legs, careful not to dislodge the catheters. Ellie looked at the machine, then at Murrey. "Who are you? What are you doing?"

  Gently, Murrey explained. He pointed to the coils, showing her where her blood was being cleaned. Ellie blinked, processing the scene, and gradually relaxed. She soon drifted into sleep.

  After eight hours, the machine was turned off. Ellie sat up, alert, even drinking fluids. When Cora Weaver returned at 7 a.m., she was astonished: Ellie was no longer comatose, and her facial swelling had subsided. But there was one problem—Ellie still wasn’t producing urine.

  The following day brought no change. No urine meant toxins continued building up in her body. That night, Ellie slipped back into a coma. Murrey didn’t hesitate. “We’ll just do it again,” he said. “It will work. I know it will.”

  The third dialysis session ran seven hours. Ellie emerged from the coma, but again, no urine. Two weeks had passed since her kidneys failed. Thirteen grams of urea had been extracted—an astonishing amount. Then, at last, a breakthrough.

  The next morning, a trace of blood-tinged urine trickled from Ellie’s bladder. A call from Ward H reached Murrey mid-surgery. "Urine output: 10 cubic centimeters," the nurse reported. Murrey nearly dropped his scalpel. By 3 p.m., the output had increased to 100. Soon, a flood followed—liters of fluid gushing from her kidneys, washing away toxins.

  Ellie’s body, once so close to death, was now healing. Her blood tests normalized. The fetus, no longer viable, had been naturally expelled. On December 31, just over three weeks after she was written off as lost, Ellie Anderson walked out of Toronto General, a bouquet of roses in her arms.

  The news of Murrey’s artificial kidney spread like wildfire. Patients from across North America were sent to him. He treated them all for free.

  Scientists from the U.S., France, and Sweden traveled to Toronto to study his invention. Like his Dutch counterpart Willem Kolff, Murrey donated his designs to the world, setting the foundation for modern dialysis.

  As for those who shared in Ellie’s rescue, their lives were forever changed. Joe Ferguson became one of Canada’s top heart surgeons. Don Van Wyck earned acclaim in obstetrics. Cora Weaver rose to become director of nursing. All of them held Dr. Jordon Murrey in the highest regard.

  Murrey passed away in 1976 at the age of 80. His colleague, Dr. Wilfred Bigelow, inventor of the cardiac pacemaker, called him "a true genius—years ahead of his time."

  Murrey saw Ellie only once more, 16 months after that fateful night. She visited his office, radiant and full of life. That evening, over dinner, Murrey smiled at his wife and said, "She has a husband now, and a lovely new baby. That’s what I’d call a full recovery."

  And so it was. A life saved. A future reclaimed. And the dawn of a new era in medicine.