A brief look at the history of this topic.

1. Solid Organ Transplants:
History & Imagination
A. J. Wright, M.L.S.
Associate Professor
UAB Anesthesiology

2. Boston, December 23, 1954

3. The Thing with Two Heads [1972]

4. Transplants in History

5. “Successful” Human Transplants
1954 Kidney/twins
[Murray/Boston [Nobel 1990]
1963 Transplant from heart-beating,
brain-dead donor
[Alexandre/Louvain, Belgium]
1963 Lung
[Hardy/University of Mississippi]

6. Joel Babb’s 1996 depiction

7. Joseph Murray, M.D.

8. “Successful” Human Transplants
1963-64 Thirteen chimpanzee kidneys to
humans
[Reemtsma/Tulane]
1966 Pancreas
[Lillehei & Kelly
Univesity of Minnesota]
1967 Heart
[Bernard/Cape Town, S.A.]

9. Christian Barnard, M.D.

10. “Successful” Human Transplants
1967 Liver
Starzl/University of Colorado
1968 Heart/first in the U.S.
Cooley/Houston
1981 Heart/lung
Reitz/Stanford

11. Thomas Starzl, M.D.

12. “Successful” Human Transplants
1983 Lung lobe
Cooper/Toronto
1987 Whole lung
Cooper/St. Louis

13. Other Milestones:
Early Kidney Transplant
1933 Human-to-human
Voronoy/Russia
[patient died in a few days]
1950 Voronoy had attempted 6
human kidney transplants by
this date

14. Other Milestones:
Immunosuppression
1944 Medawar pubilshed immune reaction in
skin grafts [Nobel 1960]
1951 Whitelaw published ACTH in burn patient
1959 Azathioprine discovered
1970 Cyclosporine discovered
1983 Cyclosporine approved in U.S.

15. Sir Peter Medawar

16. Other Milestones:
Other Approaches
1902 Carrel develops vascular
surgery techniques
[Nobel, 1912]
1953 Michon attempts living related
donor kidney
[rejection after 3 weeks]

17. Alexis Carrel, M.D. [1873-1944]

18. Other Milestones:
Liver
1963 Starzl’s first 3 attempts at
human transplants
1968 Starzl reports four prolonged
survivals
1968 Calne reports first in Cambridge
series

19. Young Man with a Horn

20. Sir Roy Calne

21. Other Milestones:
Heart
1964 Dong publishes report of 2-year
survival in dogs
1964 Hardy publishes chimpanzees-to-
human attempt
1967 Second human attempt
[New York; failed after 6 hours]
1968 Third human attempt
[Cape Town; survived several years]

22. Other Milestones:
Early Kidney
1902 Animals [Vienna]
1909 First experiments in humans -
France [Slices of rabbit kidney
into child, who died after ~ 2
weeks]
1950 Lawler [Chicago; patient Ruth
Tucker recovered function in
remaining kidney; lived 5 years]

23. Transplants in Imagination

24. Tsin Yue-Jen [407-310 B.C.]
Chinese surgeon
Performed heart exchange
Designed to reverse weak will-strong
spirit in two soldiers
Wine was anesthetic

25. Tsin Yue-Jen

26. MYTHOLOGICAL COMBINATIONS
Minotaur: human body, bull
head
Chimera: goat-lion-serpent
Centaur: half man, half
horse
Sphinx: lion body, woman's
head
Pan: half goat, half boy

27. Minotaur

28. Chimera

29. Centaur on the Parthenon

30. Modern-Day Centaur

31. Sphinx

32. Sphinx Las Vegas

33. Pan

34. Biblical & Early Christian
Examples
Ezekiel gives a new heart
Christ restored an ear cut off by Simon
Peter
St. Mark reattaches soldier’s hand
[1st cent.]
St. Anthony of Padua reattaches leg of
boy [12th cent.]

35. Leg Transplantion [ca. 1490]

36. Gargantua and Pantagruel [1567]
By Francois Rabelais, French physician,
priest and author (ca. 1483-ca. 1553)
Epistemon loses his head in battle with
giants
Panurge restores the head surgically
“Vein to vein” with 15 or 16 stitches

37. “Then cleansed he his neck very well with
pure white wine, and after that, took
his head, and into synapised some
powder of diamerdis…Afterwards he
anointed it with I know not what
ointment, and set it on very just, vein
against vein, sinew against sinew…”

38. Dr. Frankenstein Speaking
“The dissecting room and the slaughter-
house furnished many of my materials;
and often did my human nature turn
with loathing from my occupation,
whilst still urged on by an eagerness
which perpetually increased, I brought
my work near to a conclusion.”

39. DeNiro as Frankenstein’s Monster

40. Donovan’s Brain [1942]

41. Incredible Two-Headed Transplant [1971]

42. Coma [1978]

43. Robin Cook’s Coma [1977]

44. You’ve got to be kidneying…
Business traveler is drugged in a bar
Awakens in ice-filled bathtub
Kidney harvested by organ thieves
Note left with instructions

45. Popular urban legend
Has been dated to at least early 1991
Appeared on the Internet, Jan. 1997
May have originated in earlier story of
kidney theft by Ahmet Koc
Koc’s story began circulating in Jan.
1989
Koc actually sold one of his kidneys

46. The legend in popular culture
The Harvest (1993)
Baer, Kiss Me, Judas (1998)
Urban Legend (1998)
See work of Jan H. Brunvand
See www.snopes.com

47. Transplant by Dr. N. Tilney