First Human Heart Transplant

Today, a history lesson.

Groote Schuur Hospital

The first human heart transplant took place on December 3, 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.  Founded in 1938, Groote Schuur is a large, government-funded teaching hospital situated on the slopes of Devil's Peak. The hospital is an internationally acclaimed research institution and is world-renowned for its trauma unit, anaesthesiology and internal medicine departments. Groote Schuur attracts many visiting medical students, residents and specialists each year who come to gain experience in various fields.

Christiaan Neethling Barnard
November 8, 1922 - September 2, 2001

By the end of 1967 scientific research into the technique of heart transplantation was well established. For some in the medical world this, together with the growing success and acceptance of open-heart surgery, meant the time had come to perform that once unthinkable act - the transplantation of the human heart.  And because it was all about the heart, that ‘fabled seat of emotion’ which the public persisted in romanticising, there appeared to be an intense desire amongst cardiac surgeons to be at the cutting edge of history - the race was on to be the first to perform the ultimate operation, an operation which depended on the right mix of skill, character and circumstance.  Likely race contenders included heart transplant research pioneers Dr. Norman Shumway and Dr. Richard Lower, as well as their American colleague Adrian Kantrowitz.  None of the three considered the brooding Chris Barnard, tucked away on the southern-most tip of Africa, as a serious threat.

 

Denise Darvall

The drama of the world’s first human heart transplant played out within the walls of the Charles Saint Theatre at Groote Schuur Hospital.  The operation lasted nine hours and used a team of thirty people.  The patient, Louis Washkansky, was a 54-year-old grocer, suffering from diabetes and incurable heart disease.  Barnard later wrote, "For a dying man it is not a difficult decision because he knows he is at the end.  If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water, convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side."  The donor heart came from a young woman, Denise Darvall, who had been rendered brain damaged in an accident on 2 December 1967, while crossing a street in Cape Town.  She was hit by a drunk driver.

Louis Washkansky

Washkansky survived the surgery and was given drugs to suppress his immune system and keep his body from rejecting the heart.  These drugs also left him susceptible to sickness, however, and 18 days later he died from double pneumonia.  Despite the setback, Washkansky's new heart had functioned normally until his death.  Barnard became an international superstar overnight and was celebrated around the world for his daring accomplishment, he had passed a milestone in a new field of life-extending surgery.

 

One of Chris Barnard's most famous quotes is, "One life is enough if well lived."