On this day in 1967, the first-ever human heart transplant was successfully completed in a Cape Town, South Africa hospital.
The donor was Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who had died from severe injuries sustained in a car accident. The doctors explained to her father in the hospital, after it was clear she would pass away, that despite death she could help save the life of Louis Washkansky, a 53-year-old grocer dying from chronic heart disease.
Surgeon Christiaan Barnard used a technique employed in the U.S. at Stanford University in 1958 to transplant a dog heart (to another dog, don’t worry).
Unfortunately, Washkansky only benefited from the transplant for just over two weeks. After 18 days, drugs used to suppress his immune system so his body would accept the new organ ironically left him infected with double pneumonia. He died 18 days after the transplant.
The good news was that the new heart had operated like normal, showing that despite Washkansky’s quick death, it was possible to switch out one of the body’s most important organs and have a patient survive. The surgery has saved countless lives since.
You can read more about the history of heart transplants at the website of Columbia University.
