Quarks to Quasars

Aug. 31, 1968: One Donor + Four Patients = Medical History

1968: Dr. Michael DeBakey supervises five teams of surgeons in the first simultaneous, multi-organ transplant.

One team at Methodist Hospital in Houston removed the heart, the lobe of one lung, and both kidneys from a 20-year-old woman, the victim of a gunshot wound. The organs were transplanted into four patients: A 50-year-old man got the heart, the partial lung went to a 39-year-old man, and two men, 41 and 22, each received a kidney.

The entire production, which began within eight hours of the woman’s death, involved more than 60 surgeons, nurses and support staff.

For DeBakey, it was another milestone in a spectacular career that saw him develop a number of surgical techniques and procedures now commonly used in hospitals the world over. Among the surgeries he either pioneered or had an early hand in developing were the heart transplant, the arterial bypass and the artificial heart.

He also invented the Dacron graft, which revolutionized aneurysm repair. His work during World War II played a major role in the development of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH, which saved countless lives by providing emergency surgery for critically wounded soldiers within a stone’s throw of the front line.

Source: Today in Science History, Department of Veterans Affairs

Photo: American heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey takes a break from surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston. (Brett Coomer/AP)

This article first appeared on Wired on Aug. 31, 2007.

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    Aug. 31, 1968: One Donor + Four Patients = Medical History...1968: Dr. Michael DeBakey...

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    Minor aside: anyone else find it… symbolic that four men were given life from one woman?

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    I remember reading this article. ‘Tis always wonderful to see it again. What a fantastic life this man had. And I wonder...

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