She is credited with developing the concept for a procedure that would extend the lives of children born with Tetralogy of Fallot (the most common cause of blue baby syndrome).

[10] She graduated from Cambridge School for Girls in 1917,[3][11] then studied for two years at Radcliffe College before earning a bachelor's degree and Phi Beta Kappa membership[12] from the University of California, Berkeley in 1921.

[14] Instead she considered applying to study public health, partially because her father thought it a more suitable field for women,[15] [15] Taussig ended up taking classes at Boston University in histology, bacteriology, and anatomy, without expecting to receive a degree.

[2] As an anatomy student at Boston University in 1925, she published her first scientific paper on studies of ox heart muscles with her professor Alexander Begg.

Taussig made use of fluoroscopy as a diagnostic tool, and developed a particular interest in infants with cyanosis (blue-tinged appearance), often caused by the heart defect Tetralogy of Fallot.

While this was going on, Taussig observed that infants with cyanotic heart defects such as Tetralogy of Fallot or pulmonary atresia often fared remarkably better if they also had a patent ductus arteriosus, with less severe symptoms and longer survival.

[2] In general, cyanotic symptoms would often begin or worsen shortly after birth, a change which Taussig suspected was caused by the natural closure of the ductus arteriosus.

"[5][2][23] Two years later, Taussig obtained the collaboration of Johns Hopkins' new chief of surgery Alfred Blalock and his laboratory assistant Vivien Thomas.

[2][25] Eileen Saxon, a 15-month-old baby, had arrived at the emergency department earlier that month severely underweight at just 5 kg, purplish blue in colour and hardly able to drink a sip without gasping for breath.

[2][20] With the international fame this surgery drew, parents worldwide began coming to Baltimore to have their "blue babies" treated by Blalock and Taussig.

The rapid influx of prospective patients was so great that the clinic struggled to cope, and medical visitors from around the world came to assist and to share knowledge.

[2] One of the major benefits of this surgery was that children gained the ability to play actively without the rapid exhaustion and frequent loss of consciousness that usually results from cyanotic heart defects.

"[5] Nowadays, the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt is useful for prolonging life and improving health in infants before heart defects can be definitively repaired, commonly as the first stage of the three-step Norwood Procedure.

She published 100 academic articles over her career, considering various aspects of cardiology including biomedical ethics[31] and the evolutionary origins of heart disease.

[32] In her research into the long-term outcomes of recipients of the shunt, Taussig remained in touch with many of her patients as they grew to adulthood and middle age.

[23] In 1947, after a decade of gathering material,[18] Taussig published her magnum opus, Congenital Malformations of the Heart,[33] considered to be the foundational text of pediatric cardiology as an independent field.

Most paediatric clinics at the time focussed on rheumatic fever, which was the major source of child mortality, but because of Taussig's experience, the Harriet Lane Home was also able to provide specialist care for children with congenital heart disease.

[10] Around 1960, many more babies than usual began to be born in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands with phocomelia, a previously very rare condition in which limbs are absent or small and abnormally formed.

The German paediatrician Widukind Lenz was the first to draw a link to the increasing frequency of this condition and thalidomide, a drug which was a popular sleeping medication at the time with the trade name Softenon, and was often taken by pregnant women to counter morning sickness.

[2] She flew back to America and launched a campaign to try to stop the pending approval of thalidomide by the FDA, speaking at the American College of Physicians, writing in journals and magazines, and testifying before Congress in 1967.

[9][25] On May 20, 1986, four days short of her 88th birthday, Taussig was driving a group of friends to vote in a local election when her car collided with another vehicle at an intersection.