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The rise and fall of heart transplantation
I am writing this column just after taking a tour around the new Heart of Cape Town Museum in Groote Schuur Hospital. This is where, just over 40 years ago, Professor Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first successful human heart transplant. He took the heart from 25 year old Denise Darvall and implanted it into Louis Washkansky. A massive hurdle was overcome that day and, even though Washkansky survived for only a couple of weeks, the door was technically open for heart transplantation to make its mark worldwide for the treatment of heart failure. On the basis of the experience of Barnard in ...