The Blue Baby Tour

The blue baby surgery commanded so much attention that physicians in Europe urged Blalock to demonstrate the surgery. In 1947, Blalock and Taussig toured Europe to talk about the blue baby surgery and to demonstrate it to hundreds of doctors. Shown here on the right are the Blalocks arriving in England with another Hopkins couple, the Bahnsons. Blalock and Taussig received standing ovations and thunderous applause everywhere they went. Over the years, Blalock would receive numerous awards for the groundbreaking surgery, as would Taussig to a lesser degree. Many of the honors that Blalock and Taussig garnered would be accompanied by financial awards, some as high as $25,000. Cash gifts poured into the Hopkins Surgery Department, and surgery fees collected for the operation brought a financial windfall for Hopkins Hospital. While the doctors were touring Europe, Thomas remained behind in Baltimore, unrecognized and unrewarded for the surgery he created and for his extraordinary contribution to cardiac research.

 The year before the tour, in 1946, Thomas had told Blalock he that he was leaving Hopkins because he could make more money working as a carpenter with the post-war housing surge. Thomas’s endless clashes with Blalock over his low pay were triggered by his concern for his daughters. His poverty-level salary meant that he did not have enough money to send them to even a public segregated state college. Thomas was determined that his daughters would have the opportunity for the college education denied to him. Only when Thomas said he was leaving did Blalock and Hopkins garner a higher wage for him. Still, his salary remained much lower than what a good carpenter could earn. He remained at Hopkins despite his biased treatment because he was dedicated to medical research and enjoyed teaching surgery techniques to students.