Story- Almost 50 years have passed since this seminal moment in medical history—but it’s a tale that’s worth retelling…
“At precisely 5.52am on Sunday December 3, 1967, a 24-year-old heart starts beating in a 54-year-old chest, while an old, sick heart lies discarded, dead for all time” read the headlines.
The following written content by Helen Cowan
“At precisely 5.52am on Sunday December 3, 1967, a 24-year-old heart starts beating in a 54-year-old chest, while an old, sick heart lies discarded, dead for all time” read the headlines.
The surgeon
Christiaan Barnard, a tall, handsome South African surgeon, performed the world-famous operation. He had an impressive record in surgery, having performed Africa’s first human kidney transplant and first open-heart operation.
He lived during a time of transplant frenzy: the world’s first kidney transplant having taken place in 1950; the first lung transplant in 1963; and the Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov was even attempting dog head transplants…
Barnard took a pragmatic view of transplant, saying, “It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it to be devoured by worms.”
The recipient
Heart transplantation is a last resort, when all other attempts to reinvigorate the failing heart have been attempted. The recipient of the first heart transplant, Louis Washkansky, was indeed desperate, heart failure having rendered him “a bloated and breathless wreck of a man, with days to live”.
Barnard likened the plight of the heart transplant patient to that of a man being chased by a lion into a river filled with crocodiles: the operation was as risky as swimming in crocodile-infested waters, but you would do it if faced with otherwise certain death (being eaten by a lion— or death from severe heart failure).
Today, those waiting to receive a heart face the dilemma of needing to be sick enough to need a new heart (desperate enough to enter the river), yet well enough to undergo the operation (strong enough to swim). Washkansky himself, having taken the risk, survived only 18 days after the operation. Read more from Reader’s Digest.
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