Health Sciences · Temerty Faculty of Medicine
An unopened tall, silver-coloured cardboard carton containing 10 cc of Liquaemin, a brand name for Heparin. The carton is marked on opposite sides with paper labels that are off-white and red-brown in colour. One is a maker’s label, the other contains additional product information. On another side is a blue, black, and gold label identifying the package as a free “Physician’s Clinical Trial Supply”.
Accession Number: 2026.med.63
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Cardboard, Glass
Markings:
Dimensions (cm): Height = 8.5, Width = 3, Length = 3.
Heparin is a blood anticoagulant. It increases the activity of antithrombin, a protein produced by the liver that regulates blood clotting. It is a biological medicine, meaning that it is derived from animal tissues.
The development of Heparin in the mid 1930s facilitated or improved a number of medical therapies. This included the prevention of blood clots during the use of cardiopulmonary bypass technology, which revolutionized cardiac surgery around the middle of the 20th century. Heparin is still widely used today.
The carton is unopened. A piece of clear tape has been applied to one side of the carton, possibly to hold a portion of the label in place. The carton is lightly worn, especially at its edges.
Associated Instruments:
Roche-Organon, Inc. Nutley, New Jersey.
Date of Manufacture: c. 1940s.
Provenance:
T. W. Barrowcliffe (2011) “History of heparin.” In Heparin-A Century of progress, ed. by Rebecca Lever, Barbara Mulloy and Clive P. Page 3-22. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
In 1939, Roche-Organon produced the first clinically usable heparin to be manufactured in the United States. Their manufacturing process using beef lung tissue was essentially the same as that introduced by Drs. David A. Scott (1892-1971) and Arthur F. Charles (1905-1972) of Connaught laboratories in Toronto. Organaon continued to produce heparin under the trade name Liquaemin for at least sixty years. (See Barrowcliffe 2012, 6).