C. Lloyd Claff papers

Clarence Lloyd Claff was born on October 15, 1895 in Perry, New York. Claff served a brief stint in the navy from 1917-1919 during World War I, graduating from Bowdoin in 1918. In 1920, Claff began working for his father's shoe box factory, M.B. Claff & Sons. He became president of the factory in 1928, a position he held until his death on March 28, 1974, in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Although a successful businessman, Claff is probably more well known as a scientist and inventor. With little in the way of formal scientific training, in 1932 Claff began spending his summers at the Woods Hole Laboratory (now the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) in Massachusetts studying protozoa and single-cell organisms. In 1940 he became a research fellow in surgery at Harvard Medical School. Claff was responsible for the invention of the Claff Explosion-Proof Heart Defibrillator, the Claff Autotherm for congestion, and the Crescenzi-Claff Membrane Blood Oxygenator for the resuscitation of blue babies. Founder of the Single Cell Research Foundation, Inc., Claff also invented a heart-lung machine for use during cardiac surgery, and he made essential contributions toward the success of Dr. Arnold J. Lande's artificial gill.