The First Heart Transplant in Man

     On Sunday afternoon, December 3, 1967, I was awakened from a
nap by a telephone call from Morton Mintz of the Washington Post.
"Reuters says that a doctor in South Africa has successfully
transplanted a human heart," said Mintz. "What do you say about
that?"  The Post article on December 4 indicates that the
Director of the National Heart Institute called it a "technical
tour de force". Reactions recorded from others were more
enthusiastic.

     That morning I spoke to Theodore Cooper, whom I had
recruited to the Institute as Associate Director to run the
Artificial Heart-Myocardial Infarction Program, about the
possibility of a sudden rise in demand for NHI research funds. 
We proposed a meeting of potential heart transplanters. By good
fortune, we learned that CBS intended to fly the South African
surgeon, Christiaan Barnard and his wife to the U.S. I remember 
that shortly after their arrival on Christmas Eve, Cooper and I
were sequestered with them at the Washington home of television
commentator Martin Agronsky, who was protecting his scoop. 

     The meeting in Chicago began in the early afternoon of
December 28. Numerous pictures of the event were made by Dr.
Rollo Hanlon, a heart surgeon. A composite shows Christiaan
Barnard almost backed up to the door, pressed for answers posed
by several of his colleagues in the U.S. Their tone was that of
teachers who were piqued that a pupil had dared to do "their" 
experiment first.  Questions came quickly from the late David
Hume, who had worked on the immunology of transplant rejection,
and from Norman Shumway and C.Walton Lillehi, who had perfected
the operative technique at the Mayo Clinic, where Barnard had
been a trainee. I remember the little beads of sweat on Barnard's
lip as he bravely held his stand.

     It was a dramatic moment in cardiovascular surgery, the 
room contain a very large share of the American talent who would
now begin such a heroic procedure. Afterward, Cooper and I
estimated there might be up to a hundred in the next year. That
was about right.

     Christiaan Barnard returned to America in March, 1968 to a
hero's welcome at the Convocation of the American College of
Cardiology in March, 1968. As luck would have it, I gave the
Convocation Lecture. I politely praised Dr. Barnard's feat, but
clung to my theme that preventive maintenance was more valuable
than replacement of the plumbing.  

                                   D.S.F/4-26-97

In the set of materials for this archive are:
a one-page description /commentary by DSF

(1) a copy of Time Magazine, with Barnard on the cover.

(2) a copy of the article in the Post, December 4.

(3)The photograph which is listed on the DHM lot of DSF
photographs, but I do not see an accession number.  We have more
copies of this photo.

The legend (one full page ) to the photograph, which also lists
famous surgeons who were there but not in the photo.   

a reprint of my convocation lecture: "On Cultivating Prognosis in
Cardiovascular Research", Am. J. Cardiology 21, May, 1968, 753.

Some correspondence after this meeting of historical interest,

Letter from Michael E. De Bakey to Donald S. Fredrickson,
December 30, 1967

Letter from David Hume to Donald S. Fredrickson, January 24,
1968. [I had worked together with Hume in the laboratories at
Harvard Medical School in 1951-53.]

Letter from James D. Hardy to Donald S. Fredrickson. December 29,
1967.

Other letters of invitation and response.

                                   DSF DirNHI\Barnard
 

                    

DirNHI\barnard