Health Sciences · Temerty Faculty of Medicine
An empty glass vial originally contained 5 cc of Liquaemin, a brand name for heparin. The phial has a blue and off-white paper label. It is topped by a red rubber cap that has deteriorated significantly with age.
A date has been written in pencil on the left hand border of the label (relative to the viewer).
Accession Number: 2026.med.64
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Glass, Rubber
Printed on label: “411260”
Written on label: “1940 August”
Dimensions (cm): Height = 5.5, Max Diam = 1.5.
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 vial is empty. The cap is broken and heavily deteriorated. The label is worn but intact and still completely legible.
Associated Instruments:
Roche-Organon, Inc. Nutley, New Jersey.
Date of Manufacture: c. 1940
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).