Editing Christiaan Barnard (section)

==First human-to-human heart transplant==
Barnard performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant operation in the early morning hours of Sunday 3 December 1967.<ref name="S-Afr-Med-J-Barnard's-first-heart-transplant">''S Afr Med J'', "[http://www.grandroundsjournal.com/articles/gr049002/grhist-001-barnard.pdf A human cardiac transplant: an interim report of a successful operation performed at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town]", Barnard CN, 30 December 1967; ''41''(48): 1271–74.</ref><ref name=New-York-Times-2001-obituary-Christiaan-Barnard/><ref name="Los-Angeles-Times-Jill-Gottesman-March-1988">[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-03-20-tm-1895-story.html Milestones in Cardiac Care], ''Los Angeles Times'', Jill Gottesman, 20 March 1988.</ref> [[Louis Washkansky]], a 54-year-old grocer who was suffering from [[Diabetes mellitus|diabetes]] and incurable [[Cardiovascular disease|heart disease]], was the patient.<ref name="Science-Museum-patient-Louis-Washkansky">[http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/louiswashkansky Louis Washkansky (1913–1967)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170404034534/http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/louiswashkansky |date=4 April 2017 }}, Science Museum. Louis was born in Lithuania in 1913 and moved to South Africa in 1922.</ref><ref name="This Day in Jewish History">[http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/.premium-1.561467 1967: First Heart Transplant Patient Goes Under the Knife], ''Haaretz'', This Day in Jewish History, David B. Green, 3 December 2013. ".. When he was 9, his mother took him [Louis Washkansky] and his three siblings to Cape Town, to join their father, who had come ahead of the family .."</ref> Barnard was assisted by his brother Marius Barnard, as well as a team of thirty staff members. The operation lasted approximately five hours.<ref name="Daily_I" /><ref name="This Day in Jewish History" /><ref>''Every Second Counts'', McRae, 2006, pages 191–96.</ref><ref name="South African History Online">[http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/christiaan-neethling-barnard Christiaan Neethling Barnard], South African History Online, updated 11 January 2017.</ref>

Barnard stated to Washkansky and his wife Ann Washkansky that the transplant had an 80% chance of success.<ref name="Calculated-Risks-Gerd-Gigerenzer-2002">[https://books.google.com/books?id=10yfCgAAQBAJ&dq=%22calculated+risks%22+Barnard+Washkansky&pg=PA27 Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You], Gerd Gigerenzer, Simon & Schuster, 2002.</ref><ref name="Barnard stating to Mr. and Mrs. Washkansky 80% of success, in Every Second Counts, by Donald McRae">''Every Second Counts'', McRae, pages 176, 190.</ref><ref name="Ethics of Scientific Research, by Shrader-Frechette, 1994">[https://books.google.com/books?id=PbgzAAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Barnard%27s+failure+to+tell+Washkansky%27s+wife+that+her+husband+was+dying%22&pg=PA38 Ethics of Scientific Research], Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Rowman & Littlefield, 1994, page 38. Along a similar line, this author states, "Barnard's failure to tell Washkansky's wife that her husband was dying," although it's not clear whether this was pre- or post-transplant.</ref> This has been criticised by the ethicists [[Peter Singer]] and [[Helga Kuhse]] as making claims for chances of success to the patient and family which were "unfounded" and "misleading".<ref name="Companion-To-Bioethics-Second-Edition-2012">[https://books.google.com/books?id=_e03TWSl1OIC&dq=%22Barnard+gave+Washkansky+an+unfounded+and+misleading+assurance%22&pg=PT542 A Companion to Bioethics, Second Edition], Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.</ref>

Barnard later wrote, "For a dying man it is not a difficult decision because he knows he is at the end. If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water, convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side." The donor heart came from a young woman, [[Denise Darvall]], who had been rendered brain dead in an accident on 2 December 1967, while crossing a street in Cape Town.<ref name="mcrae2006" /> On examination at Groote Schuur hospital, Darvall had two serious fractures in her skull, with no electrical activity in her brain detected, and no sign of pain when ice water was poured into her ear.<ref>''Every Second Counts'', McRae, 2006, p. 188.</ref> Coert Venter and Bertie Bosman requested permission from Darvall's father for Denise's heart to be used in the transplant attempt.<ref>''Every Second Counts'', McRae, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nBYTCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22He+was+still+in+a+daze+when+Coert+Venter+knocked+gently%22&pg=PA189 page 189], "Coert Venter .. [and] Bertie Bosman .. withdrew, stressing that he should take as long as he needed to consider their request. They would understand if he declined to give his consent." Edward Darvall took four minutes to reach his decision, mainly thinking about his daughter, including how she tried to help others. He then told the doctors, "If you can't save my daughter, you must try and save this man."</ref> The afternoon before his first transplant, Barnard dozed at his home while listening to music. When he awoke, he decided to modify Shumway and Lower's technique. Instead of cutting straight across the back of the atrial chambers of the donor heart, he would avoid damage to the septum and instead cut two small holes for the venae cavae and pulmonary veins.<ref>''Every Second Counts'', McRae, 2006, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2Fv9dRT9TC4C&dq=%22Barnard+eventually+became+drowsy+and+he+drifted+in+and+out+of+sleep%22&pg=PT162 page 187].</ref> Prior to the transplant, rather than wait for Darvall's heart to stop beating, at his brother Marius Barnard's urging, Christiaan had injected potassium into her heart to paralyse it and render her technically dead by the whole-body standard.<ref name="mcrae2006" /> Twenty years later, Marius Barnard recounted, "Chris stood there for a few moments, watching, then stood back and said, 'It works.'"<ref name="mcrae2006" /><ref name="Daily_I" />

Washkansky survived the operation and lived for 18 days; he died from [[pneumonia]], possibly due to the [[immunosuppressive drug]]s he was taking.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=22 December 1967 |title=Surgery: Progress, Then a Setback |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,899915,00.html |access-date=1 May 2022 |magazine=Time |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X}}</ref>