How has heart transplant surgery changed medical history?
A heart transplant is aa surgery to remove a person's diseased heart, and replaced it with a healthy heart. In 1967, a human heart from one person was transplanted into another by a South African surgeon named Dr. Christiaan Barnard in Cape Twon.
In early December, Dr. Barnard's surgical team removed the heart of a 25-year-old -woman who had died following an auto accident, and placed it in the chest of Louis Washkansky, a 55-year-old-man dying of heart damage. The surgery was the first of its kind.
The patient survived for eighteen days. In the 1970s, the development of better antirejection drugs made transplantation more viable. Dr. Barnard continued to perform heart transplant operations, and by the late 1970s many of his patients were living up to five years with their new hearts. The first heart transplant surgery was truly an extraordinary event, which changed the history forever.