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In 1967 surgery arrived at a climax that made the whole world aware of its medicosurgical responsibilities when South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard transplanted the first human heart. Reaction, both medical and lay, contained more than an element of hysteria. Yet, in 1964 James Hardy of the University of Mississippi had transplanted a chimpanzee’s heart into a man, and in that year two prominent research workers, Richard Lower and Norman E. Shumway, had written: “Perhaps the cardiac surgeon should pause while society becomes accustomed to resurrection of the mythological chimera.” Research had been remorselessly leading up to just such an ...(100 of 21288 words)