1967

In December, South African heart surgeon Christian Barnard performs first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. The donor was a white woman, Denise Darvin; a previous suitable donor was passed over on account of being black. After two weeks, owing to the anti-rejection drugs that had wiped out his immune system, Washkansky’s breather started to fail and he developed pneumonia in both lungs and died from the pneumonia shortly thereafter (Chaddock, 233-239; Williams, 205-206). “Barnard’s surgical rivals have all since admitted intense disappointment that they weren’t the first to transplant a human heart, but Norman Shumway’s and Richard Lower’s professional wounds were perhaps deepest. They’d done more work than anyone on developing the surgery itself, and when Barnard was interviewed, he’d say only that ‘we were all at the same stage in this work” (Chaddock, 237). Washkansy’s operation was quickly followed by four more, with Adrian Kantrowitz performing the second tragic heart transplant in Brooklyn, attempting to save the life of 17-day-old baby with heart of an anencephalic baby (240). By end of 1968, 102 heart transplants had been performed, with an additional 64 by end of 1970 (Mezich, 155).