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Christiaan Barnard (1922 - 2001)
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Surgeon, born in Beaufort West, South Africa. He graduated from Cape Town
medical school, and after research in America returned to Cape Town in 1958 to work on open-heart surgery
and organ transplantation. In December 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital he performed the first successful
human heart transplant. The recipient, Louis Washkansky, died of pneumonia 18 days later, drugs given
to prevent tissue rejection having heightened the risk of infection.
A second patient, Philip Blaiberg, operated on in January 1968, survived for 594 days. Barnard retired in 1983.
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