Louis Washkansky

Louis Washkansky (* 1913 in Kaunas, † December 21, 1967 in Cape Town) was the first person, in which a successful heart transplant was performed.

Transplantation

A native of the Jewish Vilijampole in today's Lithuania and in 1922 emigrated to South Africa Washkansky earned his living as a greengrocer. On 3 December 1967, the then 54 years old man got after three heart attacks in a five-hour operation of 31 physicians scoring team in the heart of the age of 24, fatally injured in a traffic accident Denise Darvall. This operation, carried out under the direction of Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, was the first successful heart transplant in humans. The intervention sparked a huge global media coverage with very controversial debates. Washkansky was looking towards general practices constantly full name is mentioned (even with nicknames such as " Washy " occupied) and shown in previous and current images.

In 1972, the media researcher Eckart Roloff spoke in his dissertation on the press coverage of heart transplants overlooking Washkansky of the " journalistic discovery of the patients."

Washkansky survived the operation for 18 days. He died on December 21, 1967 from the effects of pneumonia. The medications that should prevent the rejection of the new heart, had greatly weakened his immune system in return. Jürgen Thorwald, the former operations shown in detail in a chapter of his book "Patients ".