We discover a museum in a hospital singularly devoted to one historic event from its operating theaters: the world's first human heart-to-heart transplant.
The surgeon and his team didn't know if it would work, but were fueled by the determination to achieve what seemed impossible. Listen on to hear how it played out.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
We discover a museum in a hospital singularly devoted to one historic event from its operating theaters: the world's first human heart-to-heart transplant.
The surgeon and his team didn't know if it would work, but were fueled by the determination to achieve what seemed impossible. Listen on to hear how it played out.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
This is a, somebody who obtained his PhD in two years instead of six.
Len:that implanted an extra head onto a dog. And everybody thought this is, is gonna walk out of here I think he should have gotten the Nobel price, but he never did
Kate:Usually the museums we visit are based on a niche subject, person or location. But today's museum is dedicated to something much more specific, one singular medical breakthrough. Welcome to the heart of Cape Town Museum. Situated within the very wing of Groote Schuur Hospital where the her world's first heart transplant took place in 1967. The exact operation rooms used are on display and staged as they were during the operation with Silicon figurines. We hop on a tour with guide Len and speak to Cindy about the operation itself, what led to it, and most importantly about the visionary surgeon behind it all, dr. Christian Barnard. The heart of Cape Town Museum is a testament to human ingenuity, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of medical progress. so I'm here at the heart of Cape Town Museum with Cindy. Cindy, how are you today?
Cindy:I'm fine, thank you.
Kate:How did the heart of Cape Town Museum come to be?
Cindy:The museum came to be after It became a famous story after the first successful human-to-human heart transplant done by Professor Barnard in 1967. So because the story became so big the hospital started the own museum. And then in 2007, our curator, Henry Yuba came on board and he did further restoration to bring it back to its original form. So when you go through our museum today, the equipment that you're seeing in theater is the original equipment that was booked to their theater the night of the operation.
Kate:So What are the challenges in running this museum?
Cindy:I think the awareness is a big problem for us because if I just take for example, south Africans, there's not a lot of South Africans that actually know about us. So majority of our, our visitors are from overseas, so it's being well advertised for tourism here in South Africa, but our South Africans aren't aware of the museum here.
Kate:Are they not taught about this in school?
Cindy:They are taught about it in school, but those are grade sixes and sevens. What we actually find is the kiddies are bringing their parents here, which I think is great. So, you know, and, when you get to speak to their parents, they're like, wow, you know, like I know about the story, but I didn't know about the museum.
Kate:What's the most popular part of the museum?
Cindy:The theaters.
Kate:And what's the most asked question?
Cindy:The most asked question. Is the dog real? So one of the first rooms that you enter into when you head up to theater is the animal lab. So they have what looks like a real dog on the table, and it's having a heart transplant and all the equipment is there. So it looks very, very real
Kate:What effect did Covid have on the museum?
Cindy:So Covid had a big effect in the sense that we actually had to close the museum. So we were closed for the entire duration of Covid. We only opened in May this year.
Kate:Wow. That's a lot of lost revenue and lost visitors.
Cindy:Lost revenue, lost visitors. And the reason for that was because Groote Schuur Hospital is actually a designated covid hospital. And because most of our visitors are tourists, you know, you're running a high risk. Problem there.
Kate:Cindy, why do you like working at the heart of Cape Town Museum?
Cindy:I'll tell you, I originally come from hr, that's my degree, I was an HR clerk and when Covid was done, and the curator approached me and he said to me, look, he's got this museum and he needs somebody to open it up. It's been closed for two years. And I said to him, well, take me through the museum. Let me, let me see, let me visit. And he brought me here and he told me the story. He's so passionate about it that I fell in love with the story and that's why I'm here. I never in my life got to meet Chris Barnard. I'm very jealous because my colleague did but I can imagine that he was a great, great guy.
Kate:Why should people come to the heart of Cape Town Museum?
Cindy:Because of the beautiful story once you've been on a tour, you'll understand what I'm saying. We've got people from all over the world that come here to visit us. From cardiac thoracic surgeons, all the way down to people who just want to know what the big deal is about. And all of them leave here with saying, this was actually the highlight of the holiday. So that is the impact that the story has.
Kate:I can tell you it was definitely one of the highlights of my holiday as well. The way the museum is structured allows you to get a real sense of Chris Barnard's character.
Cindy:What I do know is Professor Chris Barnard was a dynamic man. He was a, he was a driven man. This is a, somebody who obtained his PhD in two years instead of six. So nobody's ever been able to do it since him, you know, so if that doesn't give you an indication of what type of drive this man had how, however, with that said, One of the things that he did say in one of his interviews is this is what made him famous, the first successful human to human heart transplant. But what he actually wanted to be remembered for in his life or his legacy, was the work he did on children.
Kate:So now we go on a guided tour of the museum with Len. He'll explain the details of the surgery and then take us through what led up to it and show us the operating rooms.
Len:My name is Len by the way, and I'm gonna take you through the process of the very first heart to heart. Ha human to human not heart, human to human heart transplant that had occurred in this hospital by professor Christiaan Bernard. Now also the donor at that stage was Denise Darvall, and Mr. Louis Washkansky was the recipient. Now, Louis Washkansky was severely ill at that stage. He had two prior heart attacks already. He also had an aneurysm on the heart and his kidneys and liver didn't function properly purely because of the fact that his heart didn't function properly. Christiaan Bernard 45 years of age at that stage. Denise Darvall, 25. Mr. Louis Washkansky 53. Now at one point, also in Chris's book, if you ever read One Life very interesting book, you will read that he was actually concerned that he might not have a donor in time to save Mr. Washkansky's life. So Mr. Washkansky was at the end of his life, he basically had no chance of surviving for much longer than a few weeks. Okay, so on the Saturday of the 2nd of December of 1967, Denise and her mum was walking across the road, to actually buy a caramel cake. And as they came out of the cake shop, a drunken driver came and knocked them both over. Now Denise was flung about 40 feet, and she knocked her head against a stationary vehicle. Her mom, Myrtle died instantly at the scene of the accident. So Denise was brought to this room. This was the old emergency room of the Groote Schuur hospital that you're standing in now. So she was brought to this room and she was treated here for the injuries, but very soon they realized that she's not gonna survive. And then Dr. Bozman went out to Mr. Darvall who was sitting outside. He was sitting outside, obviously waiting for good news on his daughter because he's already lost his wife. Now, Dr. Bosman had to go outside and say, sorry, but she's not gonna survive. Can we use the organs for transplant purposes? And Mr. Darvall took about four minutes and he said, you know, the way that I know my daughter, she would rather let someone else live if she can't live at all. So that is how they got permission to, to gain the organs for transplantation purposes. The other very important thing that we must realize is that there was a difference between the law in South Africa and the law outside South Africa. In South Africa, it stated that two doctors can declare you dead. But there was no criteria attached. Didn't say this had to happen or that had to happen. Two doctors can declare you dead. So if you bump your turn, they decide you're dead. You're dead And in the rest of the world it actually stated that your heart must stop beating before they can declare you dead. And that is primarily the reason why it happened here. Because once your heart stop beating inside your chest cavity, basically clotting starts taking place and the heart starts dying, then you can't harvest a good heart anymore. So that is primarily the main reason why the operation happened in South Africa, because of that gap that Chris Baarnard saw with regards to brain dead. So he got in two neurosurgeons, he got her declared brain dead, and then they immediately started putting her on a support system so that she can survive until they could harvest a good heart from her. So immediately they kept the circulation going, everything so that they can harvest a perfect heart from her. Right. Let's go to this list here.
Kate:Introducing the Transplant Dream team. With 15 members and two patients, not everyone operated, but they all played a vital role.
Len:Half of the team were on standby and the other half was basically off. So Chris alternated that so that there's always a fresh team to actually do the operation. So remember as from September, Mr. Washkansky was in bed already in the hospital severely ill, and three weeks prior to the operation, he was moved to Chris Baarnard's section awaiting transplant. Okay? Now you'll also see another gentleman there, certain Dr. Em Baarnard. He was Marius Baarnard, Chris's brother. And he was also involved in the very first heart transplant. And I'll tell you about that a little bit later. This gentleman, professor Velva Schrire he was the head of cardiology at that stage, and he basically identified Mr. Washkansky as a possible recipient. then also very interesting thing that Very few people know is that on the 22nd of November of that year, they actually had a donor with matching tissue type as well as matching blood type. And the operation actually could have happened on the 22nd of November already, but why didn't it? Because of a law that we had in South Africa called apartheid. And the reason why they decided not to do the operations is purely because Chris and Velva Schrire agreed that with the first operation, they will not use a person of color. Cause they don't want to be seen as experimenting on people of color, which is actually a noble cause, but one was also remember that basically they lost a perfectly good heart at that stage that they could have transplanted.
Kate:Len also points out the anesthetist that we're working on that day.
Len:Yeah, the gentleman on that board there, professor j Ozinski very interesting character that also called him Ozzy. His name was Joseph, and he was the senior aneasthetist on the day. Now, a lot of doctors that come past here say it's quite amazing that he actually survived the anesthetics, especially if you take it the way that it was done in those days, as well as the fact that Mr. Washkansky was severely ill. And then one must also say Ozinsky was very, very dedicated to this whole process. The last night of Mr. Washkansky's life, he actually hand ventilated him the whole night to see if he could actually save his life. So he was very dedicated, very committed doctor, but Chris tend to attract those people to him. They said Chris had a a nature of asking you to do something and you know that he's actually gonna abuse you, but you said yes before because you felt so honored and privileged that he actually asked you to do something.
Kate:Interestingly, Len drops at the assistant anesthetist, Cecil Moss, had some seriously impressive moonlighting gigs. Not only was he the Springbok captain while working there, but he also served as the anesthetist for Nelson Mandela's surgery on Robin Island back in 1979. And if that wasn't enough, he even went on to coach the Sprinboks for seven years in the 1980s.
Len:now a lot of people want to know, why would you anesthetize someone that's brain dead? The reason for that is purely because they are involuntary twitching that takes place as well as out of respect for the patient. You're not gonna operate on someone without anesthetics, right? Okay, two things about Christian Baarnard, very important little things is. Firstly, he loved the fame when he came, became famous- and remember that happened within a week after the operation- he just loved every minute. He sucked it up like a sponge. And the second thing that he sucked up like a sponge was ladies, okay. He loved the ladies as well, wherever in the world. So any case, he loved the fame. This is at a film premier that he attended, he was the first person ever where two Popes asked him for an audience. He didn't have to ask for an audience with a Pope, which is quite amazing.
Kate:There's a picture of Chris with Sophia Lauren, princess Diana, and crowded with fans begging for autographs.
Len:And then as I said, Chris loved the fame. Wherever he could get his picture taken, he would do that. And this is at the world transplant games in Manchester.
Kate:Okay, hold up folks. We have got to take a moment to dive into something truly remarkable. The World transplant games. Picture this, it's like the Olympic games, but exclusively for organ transplant recipients. And guess what? Donor families and living donors can join in on the action and compete in certain events. The next games are in Italy in March, 2024.
Len:Then a very interesting little thing is that Chris always said that the best work that he did, or the most interesting work was his work with children. And there's a very important thing that very few people know, but it's written in his book. One Life, he did research on intestinal atresia on infants. And what intestinal atresia is basically it's a, a constriction of the blood flow to the intestines of the baby. And babies are born like that and they normally don't live very long after that. And they used to lose about eight out of every 10 children. Now what happened is he's decided to do some research on this. So he took dogs that were supposed to have puppies and he would take the one puppy out with the umbilical cord still connected, and he would simulate the problem that he experienced in infants. Then he would implant the puppy back into the mum and wait for the mum to give birth. And then he perfectly had the same problem as with children with intestinal atresia. And then he would rectify that problem and experiment on that. Now, that research of his reduced the death rate from eight out of every 10 to two out of every 10, and that method was also applied worldwide. So that's one of the things that he didn't really get credit for. As a matter of fact, I think he should have gotten the Nobel price, but he never did. Right.
Kate:After Chris's work on intestinal artresia, he got a bursary to study in Minnesota. He did research with other doctors towards the first heart transplant and was gifted a heart lung machine to take back to South Africa to further his research.
Len:So then he started doing heart transplants on dogs and he did 48 heart transplants on dogs. And guess how many were successful? None. Right. The first successful heart transplant that Chris did was on Mr. Washkansky. Then just as a matter of interest, he was also the very first person to, in this hospital on the continent of Africa, do a kidney transplant. And that he did two months prior to the first heart transplant, he used the complete team that he used in the heart transplant to do the kidney transplant. And he always boasted that he had a hundred percent success rate with kidney transplants, but he only did the one and that patient lived for 20 years. So that wasn't too bad.
Kate:He was also the first person on the continent of Africa to do open heart surgery. It was on a little girl called Joan Pick.
Len:He was also the very first person to actually do open heart surgery on the continent of Africa on a little girl called Joan Pick. She was a daughter of one of the workers with him, and she had a problem with the heart valve and he actually fixed that heart valve as well. And then he was the very first person This sounds crazy, but this, this is really a crazy story. There was a certain Dr. Demikov in Russia that implanted an extra head onto a dog. And when Chris Baarnard heard this, he thought, oh, well I can also do it. And he did it here as well. So on the day when Yani Lowe was the head of surgery at that stage, heard about this,. he actually ran down to the lab to see this lot and there was this dog with one body, two heads, and they were both licking up water from a bucket.
Kate:Yes, I know. Wow. A lot to take in here. Okay, so first off, they found the dogs at the pound that were going to be euthanized anyway, the 1960s were a very bad time to be a stray dog in Cape town. Secondly, yes, medical ethics, that branch was still emerging. Animal transplant experiments began in the early 19 hundreds. In 1905 French, Dr. Christian Cabrol performed a transplant of a dog's heart onto the neck of another dog. Three years later, American Dr. Charles Guthrie grafted a second head onto a dog well before Dr. Demikov's similar surgery in 1954. Notably, the dog involved in Dr. Demikov's experiment managed to survive for 29 days following the surgery.
Len:Anybody know how a heart lung machine works? So what the heart lung machine does is it basically takes over the function of the heart and the lungs while the heart and the lungs don't work during heart transplant or open heart surgery, where they actually had to stop the heart. So it circulates the blood through the body, but it not only circulates it, it takes out the deoxygenates, oxygenated blood, oxygenates it, and then returns it to the body and circulates it through the body. In the old days prior to the heart lung machine, what they used to do is they used to take the parent of the child, which they were going to operate on, and they would link the two, onto one another with two pipes coming into the arteries and the veins in the leg. And then they would, with a little pump, circulate the blood from the mother to the child. So the mother's lung did the job of getting oxygen in and then it would circulate it back through the child and back to the mum. But the problem with that is that they very soon realized that they've got a 200% chance of losing both patients. And that is when the heart lung machine was discovered. It was absolutely brilliant because now they didn't have to use a human to do the circulation.
Kate:Len also told us a story of when Chris was in the US and he was presented with a patient with liver problems. The patient's liver couldn't recover quick enough, so the doctor was replacing a pint of blood every day for the patient. When Chris saw this, he thought of a better plan. He took a baboon and put oxygenated saline solution into the baboon while taking out all of its blood. When there was no blood left, he replaced it with human blood.
Len:And the next morning the baboon was sitting there eating bananas and peaches and whatever. So he did some amazing, crazy stuff. They, they were just so experimental at that stage. It was just unreal. And the kind of things that he did, I mean, just another example, what happened is Chris had no ways of reducing the body temperature of the person or animal that he operated on, specifically animals. And what he used to do, he used to go down to the chemist of the university and he used to draw some condoms there. And he then he would implant it in the stomach of the dog, and then he would circulate cold water through there to reduce the temperature of the body of the dog. So they did amazing things and crazy things Sometimes.
Kate:Now, of course, Chris had a whole team of people to support him in his research and surgery. We're showing a video of one very special assistant to Chris, Hamilton Naki. Hamilton Naki was born in a poor black family in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. With limited opportunities, he left school at 14 and started working as a gardener in Cape Town. He was then hired as an animal lab assistant where he progressed from cleaning cages to performing anesthesia. When he joined Chris Barnard, his remarkable skill and dexterity at animal anesthesia was noticed. He was appointed as Principal Surgical Assistant. Which was quite extraordinary at the time, given the divisive apartheid laws. These are Chris words from the video.
Hamilton had a lot of skill. As far as the technical side, uh, was concerned, he probably had more skill than I had, because I was not really a very good technician. And what's more important is that he was proud. He was, he had tremendous pride in, uh, the quality of his performance.
Kate:Hamilton went on to even teach students and assisted transplant surgeon Dr. Rosemary Hickman until his retirement in 1991. He was awarded an honorary master's degree from the University of Cape Town in 2003, two years before his death.
So many people with tremendous potential, uh, has never had the opportunity to develop that potential. I would say the agreement to success is firstly a certain amount of ability, and the second one is opportunity. Uh, and many, there are many, many people who are probably as skilled as Hamilton, as gifted as Hamilton, that has never had the opportunity to explore what God gave them.
Kate:Now we enter the theatre rooms which are set up to look exactly like they did on the day of the operation. There's two separate theatres with a small sterilisation room, serving as a central connection between them.
Len:You are actually in the real theater where the Denise Devall organs were taken out on the morning of the 3rd of December. This is also National Heritage Site in South Africa. This operating theater as well as the operating theater on the other side where the implantation occurred. The person that prepared a Misa valve for the removal of the heart was Marius Barnaard his brother. So he was, here, he opened up the chest cavity and waited for Chris to finish on that side and come and remove the heart. The operations started around about one o'clock that morning. They gave them anesthetics. That took about 20 minutes, and about 20 past they started opening up the chest cavities. I must just state that in Denise Darvall's heart, they did not remove while it was beating. They waited for the heart to stop before they removed the heart. They switched off the machines. It took about, say, 10 to 15 minutes before the heart stopped, and then they removed the heart. So yeah, as I said, Marius opened the chest cavity they carried it. As a matter of fact, Chris counted his steps as he walked next door with a heart in a bucket like this. Cause what they do is they put anti clotting agent in the heart while it's still in the body. Then they remove the heart, put it in ice, cold ringers, lactate, and they would carry it next door and also they reduce the body temperature, I tell you that already..
Kate:We move into the other theater, through the sterilization room, the theater with the recipient in it.
Len:Just one thing that I must say, you, the, the only two people that knew about heart transplants in this operating theater was Chris Baarnard and Marius. None of the other staff. The other staff was purely normal surgery staff, so they were the only people that knew how to do a heart transplant. Let's start back at the history. What happened here. So at around about three o'clock, Chris actually managed to remove the heart on that side and he carried it the 31 steps to this side. And the nurse that held the bucket there said she was so scared to drop that because she knew Chris would kill her. There was no dose about it. It was just kill her. Any case they immediately put it on the heart lung machine so that they can oxygenate the heart, and then they started the implantation part. And they implanted the heart and around two minutes to six was the critical time when they had to see whether this heart was actually going to beat. And as you know, Chris didn't have a lot of success with dogs, so he was also just as concerned as anybody whether this is actually gonna work or not. And he took these two pedals, these are the goodies that they used to shock the heart with. He put it against the heart and as he shocked it, the heart started beating immediately. So that was quite an incredible moment. You can just imagine the relief amongst this people and the excitement when this happened. As a matter of fact, that lady that's are still alive today, Dinny said to me, we were all smiling and congratulating each other. And also Chris, as a matter of fact, experience the tremendously. It must have been the most exciting moment for everybody in this hall that morning. The only hiccup that they had that whole night was when Chris had to put one pipe from the from the heartlung machine into the femoral artery. As he put it in immediately, he said, listen, we've got a blockage. Clam down, I'm gonna move it to the aorta. And as they clammed down, they never switched off the heart lung machine and the next moment there was blood all over the floor. So then they had to clean up the blood. They also had to get the bubbles out of the machine before they could carry on with the operation. That only took them two minutes, but it must have felt like two hours, if not four.
Kate:Len points our attention to a blackboard on the far wall, which has a list of surgical tools and tally marks against each one.
Len:Another interesting thing is also the figures that you see on the board there, which is a five and a scratch out, another five scratch out, everything that goes into the chest must come out again. So if you put in five of these, you must count them and scratch them out once you've taken them out so that everybody knows everything is out Then the other interesting thing is, of course, the cloths that you see hanging here in those days, they also use cloths to actually suck up the blood from the chest cavity, and then they would take these cloths and they would actually weigh it there to see what the blood loss of the patient was. Nowadays, they don't do that anymore. They just do a thumb suck and say, well, it probably lost about so much, and it just plug in the, the blood into the, into the person. So that's when the operation basically was a success. When the heart started beating, then I still had to close him up and remove him to the recovery room.
Kate:We enter the recovery room with Hyperrealistic silicon figurines set up in the hospital room. There's Louis Kinski waving from the bed with a book in his lap, and Dr. Barnard attending to him in Scrubs.
Len:Unfortunately we couldn't use wax because it's too hot in South Africa. As a matter of fact, within the first few days, there was a dramatic increase in his general condition. The legs, the swelling in the legs came down. He was actually sitting up speaking to the nurses, making jokes with him. And he was a very lovable character. But in those first few days, he was actually progressing extremely well. And everybody thought this is, is gonna walk out of here Even he was eating normally. Everything went extremely well. And then at one point he started complaining about abdominal pain, chest pain, and shoulder pain. And now remember, Chris had a team of specialists sitting twice a day to, to discuss his progress and see what they're gonna do for the next period. And at that point, the only conclusion that they could come to was that it was rejection. So they started giving anti-rejection medication for a few days, and then when they took another x-ray, they actually saw a spot on the lung, lung, and then they realized that it was actually pneumonia and it wasn't rejection. At that point, the immune system is reduced because of the anti-rejection medication. And then he couldn't fight the pneumonia. And that is the reason why he died in 18 days time. After that, that same morning that he passed away, that actually did the autopsy on him. The the heart operation was in perfect Nick. There was nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, the sad thing is there were no signs of rejection. But unfortunately, that is how it happened. And I think also what Chris did at that point, because of the fact that it was the very first operation and they didn't know what to expect, when the problem set in, he immediately believed, and I think he pushed that anti-rejection medication to actually try and pull him through, which was unfortunately the wrong decision. And Chris regretted that for a very long time in his life. So it was a very, very sad thing for him as well.
Kate:And that, my friends, Is the incredible tale of the world's inaugural human heart to heart transplant. It unfolded with an air of secrecy, with only the hospital staff knowing at the time. Yet, when the procedure was finished and the veil was lifted, the entire globe was captivated by the news, sparking media requests and fan mail from far and wide.
Len:So these are basically all letters of congratulations, letters from admirers and people just appreciated what he did. But there was a lot of people that gave him negative criticism as well. If you looked in that box you're most welcome to come and read it.
Kate:For example, one s Pascal wrote to Chris the simple message"it is my profound conviction that you are unmoral, a bunch of ghouls all of you." Another letter read:"memo to the great heartless transplanter. Well done Messer abouter."
Len:some had wanted him arrested immediately. Some said they were a lot of butchers in Cape Town, so there was a lot of people that were actually negative towards the operation as well. But eventually, I mean, all people now know that her heart transplant is basically a relief for someone that's got serious heart conditions. This one letter that I want to focus on, and that's of a little girl called Cheryl. That wrote a letter to Chris and said, listen, I please want to do a heart transplant between two birds. Will you please tell me how it's done? And and Chris wrote back to her and said, listen, I can't tell you how it's done, but come and have a look and I'll show you how it's done. Let's turn around. I'm gonna go down that wall quickly. This is just the first six patients. Now, as I said, Dr. Fuller Blyk, the one on that side and Peter Smith are sitting here together. Philip Blyk survived for 18 months, and Peter Smith survived for 20 months. So you take from 18 days, 18 months, 20 months. Then we, unfortunately get to this gentleman. Yeah, William Killops. He didn't survive for too long. He had acute rejection of the heart. Severe rejection of the heart. And he only survived for two months and a few days, two months and nine days as a matter of fact. So he wasn't a very good patient. He, he really struggled to, for his body to, to, to get used to this new heart. And then this lady came along, amazing Lady of Dorothy Fisher, first lady of color that actually received a heart. And she called Chris daddy. And because she called Chris daddy, she could basically get away with anything. She didn't always drink her medication. She didn't always come for a doctor's visits, but she lived for 13 years. So if you take it now, we are ready from 18 days, we are onto 13 years. And then this gentleman came along and decided, okay, I'm the sixth patient, I'm gonna show you how it's done. And he left for 23 years. So Albert, he recovered well, and as I said, he left for 23 years. As a matter of fact, he didn't die of anything of his heart. He died of a diabetes induced drug. So completely different. Dorothy died of rejection eventually, kilos, as I said, severe rejection. Philip Blyk died of rejection. Pie Smith died of cancer.
Kate:So out of the initial six heart transplant patients, sadly five died from tissue rejection. Tissue rejection occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the transplanted organ or tissue. Anti-rejection medication is used to suppress the immune response, allowing the body to gradually adapt to the transplant without resistance. it's a delicate balance that's that they strive to achieve in the realm of transplantation.
Len:So it all depends on how your body adapts to this new organ. But I must also say that the anti-rejection medication improved in 1980 dramatically. And that helps a lot of people now. So it doesn't really reduce your immune system that much nowadays. So let's go to the sad ending of Chris. On the 1st of September of 2001, he was in Papos in Cyprus on holiday there, also went to sell some olive oil there because he was at that stage, farming close to Beaufort West. And he also tried to export olive oil. And the evening he went down to the swimming pool to have a quick swim cause he believed it helped for his arthritis. And as he got out of the pool, he had a massive asthma attack and he passed away of asthma at the age of 79. Interestingly enough, this is his own words, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what he said about himself, I'm a guy who loves people. I love the female sex, and I like to enjoy life. And that's Chris Baarnard in a nutshell. That is just Chris. And if you read his books, it's just amazing. By the way, he re, he wrote about 36 books in his lifetime as well, so he was quite a bit of a writer as well.
Kate:Chris's legacy is profound and far reaching. There's a whole corridor in the museum that celebrates a hundred heart transplants at Groote Schuur hospital alone between 1985 and 2003. His work instilled hope in countless patients and propelled advancements in cardiac surgery, sparked global awareness of the field and ignited healthy discussions on medical ethics. His dedication, vision, and determination have left a mark and inspired future generations of medical professionals to push the boundaries of what is possible in the pursuit of improving and saving lives, including. His dedication, vision, and determination have left a mark and inspired generations of medical professionals to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the pursuit of improving and saving lives, including.
Len:And I hope to at one point be able to transport pig hearts into humans. As we stand here today, on a yearly basis, there's a million people waiting for new hearts and only five to 6,000 operations are getting done purely because of the lack of donors.
Kate:On that note, I'll leave you with three pieces of advice. On that note, I'll leave you with three pieces of advice. One, register to be an organ donor. Two, visit the heart of Cape Town Museum and three, never lose sight of your goals. Don't forget to check out our Instagram this week where we have photos of the museum displays, including the actual hearts of the first donors and recipients, the theater rooms, fan mail, hate mail, and lots of newspaper clippings. Thanks for listening to Roadshow and Tell. If you enjoyed this deep dive into a specialty museum, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We're a new podcast. So if you wanna help support us, please share it with a friend and leave a rating and review. If you are involved with or know of a regional or specialty museum that should be featured, please get in touch at roadshowandtell@gmail.com. I'm your host, Kate. Roadshow and Tell was edited and produced on the lands of the Gadigal people. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the various lands on which you may be listening from, and the lands that the museums featured in this podcast reside on. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this podcast. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of Australia.