science · 23 January 1964 · 60 years ago
In 1964, the first animal to human heart transplant was made. Dr. James Hardy at the University of Mississippi transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee (named Bino) into the chest of Boyd Rush (age 68) in a last-ditch effort to save the man's life because no human was heart available. The newly-transplanted heart beat on its own; but it was too small to maintain independent circulation and Rush died after 90 minutes. Hardy had to endure some severe criticism. (This was three years before Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant). Hardy also made the first human lung transplant in 1963 and a double-lung transplant that left the heart in place in 1987.
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