On 3 December 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, the surgeon Christiaan Barnard and a team of 30 transplanted the heart of a young woman killed in a road accident, Denise Darvall, into the chest of Louis Washkansky, a 53-year-old grocer who was dying of heart disease. Washkansky lived 18 days before dying of pneumonia. The operation made Barnard a world celebrity. Heart transplants spread rapidly but with poor results until the introduction of the immunosuppressive drug ciclosporin in the early 1980s, and today they succeed in most cases.
Before and after
- November 1967Jocelyn Bell discovers pulsars
- from 3 November 1967 to 23 November 1967Battle of Dak To
- 9 November 1967Launch of Apollo 4
- from 30 November 1967 to 22 May 1990South Yemen
- 3 December 1967Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant
- 21 December 1967Birth of Mikheil Saakashvili
- 1968Prague Spring
- 1 January 1968Establishment of Comoé National Park
- 1968Founding of European Olympic Committees
More in Science & technology
- 1945Discovery of promethium
- 1950Discovery of californium
- 1952Discovery of einsteinium
- December 1952Discovery of fermium
- 29 August 1982Discovery of meitnerium
- June 2002Discovery of oganesson
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.