Taussig studied at Radcliffe College, at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A., 1921), at Harvard University, and at Boston University before earning her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1927. In 1930 she became the head of Johns Hopkins pediatric heart clinic, a position she held until 1963. She began studying “blue babies,” infants whose colour at birth indicated inadequate oxygenation of their blood, and she pioneered the use of fluoroscopy and X rays to study such defects, eventually pinpointing the particular heart malformation responsible for a particular set of symptoms. In the early 1940s Taussig and the surgeon Alfred Blalock devised a successful surgical treatment (known as the Blalock-Taussig shunt) for infants born with the condition known as the tetralogy of Fallot, or “blue baby” syndrome. The syndrome is cause by a congenital heart defect that deprives the blood of the necessary amount of oxygen. The success of the operation brought Taussig recognition as the founder of pediatric cardiology.
Taussig’s research spurred the development of many other surgical treatments for common heart disorders. Her book Congenital Malformations of the Heart, 2 vol. (1947, rev. ed. 1960–61), contains a comprehensive description of a number of specific heart defects and elaborates a wide array of diagnostic tools, techniques, and findings. In 1962–63 Taussig played a key role in alerting American physicians to the dangers of thalidomide, a tranquilizing drug whose use had produced large numbers of deformed newborns in Europe. Her prompt actions prevented a recurrence of the tragedy in the United States. Taussig taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1930 to 1963, becoming a full professor there in 1959.