Heart Transplant Succeeds: Barnard Opens Medical Frontier
Christiaan Barnard injected potassium into Denise Darvall's heart to declare her dead and immediately transplanted it into Louis Washkansky, launching an era of life-extending surgery despite the patient succumbing to pneumonia just eighteen days later. This bold leap from Cape Town sparked a global revolution in medicine that quickly yielded survivors like Philip Blaiberg, who lived nineteen months with his new heart, proving the procedure could extend human life far beyond the initial shock.
December 3, 1967
59 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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