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The Kidney
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The kidney is an organ that cleans the blood. It also regulates the volume of the blood by holding back and increasing fluid. In addition, they keep the level of red blood cells constant.
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Artificial Kidneys
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In 1913, an experiment was done at dog Hopkins University. An outside filter was used to filter out the blood of the dog that was given large doses of aspirin.
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Normal humans are born with two kidneys, however if both kidneys fail, the result is dealth. Nowadays, kidney transplants are very successful. In fact 96% of them are successful. However, before transplants were ever taken place, artificial kidneys were made.
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Nowadays, artificial kidneys work by the process of dialysis. Dr. Willem Kolff used the process of dialysis to clean the blood. He did so by using cellophane tubing and filling it with blood. After rocking it in a saltwater bath and adding urea to the blood, he found that all the urea had passed out through the cellophane! How does this work? The blood flows into the plastic tube, but is too large to go through the pores of the tube. When the toxic waste goes through, it is small enough to go through the pores. Since the outside of the tube is surrounded by the sterile solution, the toxic waste comes out because of diffusion.
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There are three main types dialysis machines. One is a coil dialyser, the other is the plate or parallel flow dialyser, and third is the hollow fibre dialyser. In the coil dialyser, membranes are wound round in a spiral. The plate or parallel flow dialyser allows the blood to flow on either side of large flat membranes. In the hollow fibre dialyser, the membrane is made as many parallel small tubes.
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