The Blue Aries

I just finished watching a movie called “Something the Lord Made.” The Film Featured the starring rolls for Alan Rickman and Mos Def. It’s the true story about the life & career of two men, Dr. Alfred Blalock (Rickman) and Dr. Vivien Thomas (Def). These two men pioneered the heart surgery field. Both were extremely talented, very inventive, and very intelligent.

The movie was powerful, very well written and directed (in my opinion anyway). The movie is about Thomas mostly, his rise in the medical field; the segregation and bigotry he faced as a black man in the early years of this country. It was Blalock who saw something in Thomas that led them to the place that they got to. The movie also centered around a special surgery on the heart of a “blue baby”. What this means is that the baby isn’t getting enough oxygen in its blood, so the skin turns blue, they become weak and very ill, then they would die.

The two men came up with an idea to save the lives of these blue babies, they discovered this by working on dogs, first to find a way to turn them blue and then they found a way to correct the problem. They were at the prestigious Johns Hopkins when they made the history changing surgery. The actual surgery was performed by Blalock and he was assisted by Thomas who stood behind Blalock and gave him suggestions.

If you get a chance check the movie out, its fantastic.