On March 6, 1937, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, John Strieder attempted the ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus in a 22-year-old woman with bacterial endocarditis, thirty years after John Cummings Munro had proposed the idea (1907, Philadelphia Academy of Surgery) without ever performing the operation. Due to the short length of the duct, only a partial closure was achieved; the patient improved immediately but died four days later. It is the first documented surgical attempt on the ductus, a direct precursor to Robert Gross's successful ligation the following year (1938).