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
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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 1955. 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
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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
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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
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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, 1974. This time he removed only the diseased portion
of the heart of fifty-eight-year-old , replacing it with the heart of a tenyear-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."
Sources
www.nndb.com/people/887/000082641/
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ba-Be/BarnardChristiaan.html#b#ixzz2dp9eQD2C
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/53606/Christiaan-Barnard