Christiaan Barnard

Basic Facts  Born: November 8, 1922, Beaufort West, South Africa  Died: September 2, 2001, Paphos, Cyprus, Asthma Attack  First Family; Father : Adam Hendrik Barnard Mother : Maria Elisabeth de Swart  Siblings: Marius Barnard(brother)

Early life  Barnard grew up into poverty with his family but managed to get enough education to the University of Cape Town, where he received a master's degree in 1953.

Doctor  Barnard worked for a short time as a doctor before joining the Cape Town Medical School for study of surgery.  With the goal of pursuing his research and learning more about surgery he enrolled at the University of Minnesota Medical School in After two years of study he received his Ph.D. (doctorate degree) and returned to South Africa to embark upon a career as a heart surgeon.

Saving Lives  Even before Barnard left Africa, he had gained recognition for research in intestinal diseases where he proved that the fatal birth defect known as congenital intestinal atresia (a gap in the small intestines) was due to the fetus (undeveloped baby) not receiving enough blood during pregnancy. Barnard also proved that this condition could be cured by a surgical procedure. Upon his return to South Africa, he introduced open-heart surgery to that country, designed artificial valves for the human heart, and experimented with the transplantation of the hearts on dogs.

Life Achievement  After a decade of heart surgery, Barnard was ready for surgery human heart. In 1967 he met Louis Washkansky, a patient who suffered from extensive coronary artery disease (the arteries around the heart) and who agreed to undergo a heart transplant operation. On December 2, 1967, the heart of a young woman killed in an accident was removed while Washkansky was prepared to receive it.  In order to fool the body's defense mechanism that would normally reject a foreign organism, Barnard and his team of heart specialists gave the patient large doses of drugs, which allowed the patient's body to accept the new organ. But Washkansky's body was not able to defend itself against infection he died on December 21, 1967, of double pneumonia. Despite Washkansky's death, Barnard was praised around the world for his surgical feat. And in January 1968, Barnard replaced the diseased heart of Philip Blaiberg. This time the drug dosage was lowered, and Blaiberg lived for twenty months with his new heart. After Barnard's successful operations, surgeons in Europe and the United States began performing heart transplants, improving upon the procedures first used in South Africa.

Mid-life to Death  Seven years after Barnard performed his first heart transplant, he made medical history once again when he performed a "twin-heart" operation on November 25, This time he removed only the diseased portion of the heart of fifty-eight-year-old, replacing it with the heart of a ten- year-old child. The donor heart acted as a booster and back-up for the patient's diseased organ. Although Barnard was optimistic about this new operation, which he believed was less radical than a total implantation, the patient died within four months.  Rheumatoid arthritis (a severe swelling of the joints), which had plagued Barnard since the 1960s, limited his surgical experimentation in later years. As a result, he turned to writing novels as well as books on health, medicine, and South Africa while also serving as a scientific consultant.  Barnard's advances in heart surgery brought him honors from a host of foreign medical societies, governments, universities, and philanthropic (charitable) institutions. He has also been presented many honors, including the Dag Hammarskjold International Prize and Peace Prize, the Kennedy Foundation Award, and the Milan International Prize for Science. Barnard died on September 2, 2001, while on vacation in Paphos, Cyprus. He was seventy-eight.  Shortly before Barnard's death, he spoke with Time magazine and left these inspiring words: "The heart transplant wasn't such a big thing surgically," he said. "The point is I was prepared to take the risk. My philosophy is that the biggest risk in life is not to take the risk."

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