Christiaan Barnard was born in Beaufort West, Cape Province of South Africa on the 8th November 1922. He was destined to become a doctor who would become world famous as a result of performing the world’s first heart transplant.
The son of a Dutch Reformed Church Minister and one of 5 brothers (his brother Abraham died at the age of 5 from heart problems) Chris Barnard grew up in the dusty and small Karroo town of Beaufort West where he completed his education at the local high school, matriculating in 1940, after which he went to study medicine at the Cape Town University Medical School graduating from there in 1945.
Christiaan Barnard’s internship and residency was completed at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town South Africa. For a few years he worked as a GP in Ceres, a small rural town in the Western Cape Province, where he met and married a nurse Aletta (Lettie) Louw in 1948. Two children were born to Chris and Aletta, Dierdre in 1950 and Andre in 1951.
The Family returned to Cape Town where Chris Barnard worked at the City hospital and at Groote Schuur Hospital as a registrar in the Medical Department and completed his Masters degree in Medicine at Cape Town University
A few years later in 1956 he went to the University of Minnesota in the United States as he had received a scholarship for two years postgraduate training in cardiothoracic surgery. During his time in the United States, Chris Barnard met Dr Norman Shumway who was a pioneer in research leading to human heart transplant.
Chris Barnard returned to South Africa in 1958 and while working at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, he established the hospitals first heart unit after being appointed Cardiac Thoracic Surgeon. After becoming Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Cape Town in 1962, he worked together with his brother Dr Marius Barnard who became his right hand man at the dept. of Thoracic surgery.
In 1967 Chris Barnard performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa and then started conducting experimental heart transplant surgery and transplanted hearts into more than 50 dogs. Soon he was ready with his team to attempt a human heart transplant and had a patient ready to agree to the procedure but needed a donor.
The patient was Louis Washkansky who was suffering from incurable heart disease and eventually a donor was found. Denise Darvall was killed in a road accident and her father gave permission for her heart to be transplanted, so on the 3rd December 1967 and assisted by his brother Marius and a heart team, Dr Christiaan Barnard transplanted the heart of Denise Darvall to Louis Washkansky. Despite the fact that Washkansky only survived 18 days after the operation Chris Barnard’s accomplishment was celebrated throughout the world. With successive transplants his patients survived for longer and longer times. This was a momentous break-through in the international health community.
In 2001 while vacationing in Paphos Cyprus, Dr Christiaan Barnard died following an Asthma attack. He will always be remembered as the man who pioneered heart transplant surgery, amongst his many other achievements.
Very impressed with the site – thanks for the link. I didnt realize that Chris Barnard died in Cyprus of all places!
If you need books on the Boer war – I have a rare book which I would be willing to lend you on battlefields of the Boer war which are incredibly interesting and I have of course the bible of the Boer war – Goodbye Dolly Gray
Best of Luck
Mark
impressive
The first kidney transplants between living patients were undertaken in 1954 in Boston and Paris. The Boston transplantation, performed on December 23, 1954, at Brigham Hospital was performed by Joseph Murray, J. Hartwell Harrison, John P. Merrill and others.