“It is the crowning effort of a team of men and women who bring at that moment, the training of a lifetime. Structured with the inherited technique and skill of a millennium – all are fused to one objective: to replace a dying heart with a new one, to save one life.”
Christiaan Neethling Barnard, 1922 – 2001.
The drama of the world’s first human heart transplant, led by Professor Christiaan Neethling Barnard, played out within the walls of the Charles Saint Theatre, at Groote Schuur Hospital on the 3rd December 1967.
The human heart transplant, one of the greatest moments in medical history, was made possible by an extraordinary interplay of scientific dedication; human courage and generosity and a timely chain of events.
Today, The Heart of Cape Town Museum honours all those who played a major role in the surgical feat that pushed the boundaries of science, into the dawn of a new medical era, an era in which it became possible to transplant the symbol of the essence of life, our human heart.
Read more interesting facts about the surgeon himself, Christiaan Barnard here.
