Louis Washkansky

Louis Washkansky
Born12 April 1912 (1912-04-12)[1]
Kovno, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire
Died21 December 1967(1967-12-21) (aged 55)
Cape Town, South Africa
SpouseAnn Sklar

Louis Joshua Washkansky (12 April 1912[1] – 21 December 1967) was a South African man who was the recipient of the world's first human-to-human heart transplant, and the first patient to regain consciousness following the operation.[2] Washkansky lived for 18 days and was able to speak with his wife and reporters.[3][4][5]

Washkansky was the second human recipient of a heart transplant overall, in that James Hardy had done a transplant in 1964 in which Boyd Rush received a chimpanzee's heart, although the patient in that case only survived an hour and did not regain consciousness.[6][7]

  1. ^ a b Beyers, C. J. (1981). Dictionary of South African Biography: Vol IV. Pretoria: National Council for Social Research (South Africa). p. 762. ISBN 0-624-00856-8. OCLC 20937.
  2. ^ "Hart in S.A. Oorgeplant [Hart Transplanted in S.A.]". Die Burger. 4 December 1967. p. 1.
  3. ^ 1967 Year In Review
  4. ^ S Afr Med J, "A human cardiac transplant: an interim report of a successful operation performed at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town", Barnard CN, 1967 Dec 30; 41(48): 1271–74.
  5. ^ Louis Washkansky (1913 – 1967) Archived 4 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Science Museum. Louis was born in Lithuania in 1913 and moved to South Africa in 1922.
  6. ^ Heart Transplantation in Man: Developmental Studies and Report of a Case, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), James D. Hardy, MD; Carlos M. Chavez, MD; Fred D. Kurrus, MD; William A. Neely, MD; Sadan Eraslan, MD; M. Don Turner, PhD; Leonard W. Fabian, MD; Thaddeus D. Labecki, MD; 188(13): 1132-1140; 29 June 1964.
  7. ^ Donald McRae, Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart, Chapter 7 "Mississippi Gambling," Penguin Group (G.P. Putnam's Sons), 2006, pages bottom 122 through 127.