Kolff artificial kidney, Netherlands, 1955-1956
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Willelm J Kolff (b. 1911) developed the first artificial kidney, a forerunner of the kidney dialysis machine, during the Second World War in German-occupied Holland. Kolff used such easily available resources as cellophane sausage casing and empty food tins to build his ‘kidney’, which served to filter the blood. This example is made from an apricot tin. When a person’s kidneys fail, waste products cannot be removed from the blood and this causes illness.
Object number:
1987-250
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Glossary:
Glossary: kidney dialysis machine
A machine used to artificially replicate the function of the kidneys.
Glossary: Aryan
A term used by Nazi Germany to describe the so-called 'pure' Germanic race.
Glossary: anti-semitic
Discrimination and prejudice against Jewish people. Its most extreme form was found in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s with the Holocaust.