It is the end of an era. On Friday night, Dr. Michael DeBakey, the legendary innovator and cardiac surgeon died. He was 99 years old. His death, at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, was of natural causes, according to a statement released by the hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, where DeBakey was chancellor emeritus.

"Many consider Michael E. DeBakey to be the greatest surgeon ever," the Journal of the American Medical Association said in 2005.

DeBakey's pioneering surgical procedures in bypassing blocked arteries in the neck, legs and heart have been performed on millions of patients around the world. By the time he stopped a regular surgical schedule, when he was in his 80s, he had performed more than 60,000 operations.