That is what happened when Christaan Barnard and his team of professionals transplanted a heart into Louis Washkansky on the third of December in 1967. The donor of the heart, Denise Darvall, had been killed in an accident, and after five months of waiting, Barnard’s team was ready to operate.

The first thing that had to be done in the procedure was to have the kidney taken out and sent across Cape Town to another hospital where there was a ten year old boy who needed a kidney transplant. Then, they cut out the heart. They put it into a bowl of liquid that was ten degrees celsius and got it over to where Dr. Barnard was waiting with his patient, and there sewed the heart into place with silk thread, before wiring up his sternum and stitching his chest up.

In the pictures on the museum wall, there was a picture of a German Shepard that had the head of a miniature poodle grafted on to the top. That mix lived for nine days, while Louis Washkansky lived for eighteen days, surpassing the expectations of Mr. Barnard. By the way, Washkansky was ill before he got the surgery, so he probably would not have lived very long.

That’s all for now, Folks!