High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! John Heysham Gibbon Jr., AB, MD, (September 29, 1903 – February 5, 1973) a surgeon best known for inventing the heart-lung machine and performing the first open heart surgery (a repair of an atrial septal defect). He was the son of Dr. John Heysham Gibbon, Sr., and Marjorie Young Gibbon (daughter of General Samuel Young), and came from a long line of medical doctors including his father, grandfather Robert, great-grandfather John, and great-great grandfather.