Barnard, Christiaan Neethling (1922 – 2001)
Doctor and pioneer of heart transplants Christiaan Neethling Barnard is a brilliant South African surgeon who made medical history when he transplanted the first human heart on 3 December 1967. The 55 year old Louis Washkansky was dying when the heart of a 25 year old victim of a motorbike accident became available. Although the transplant was successful, Washkansky died eighteen days later of double pneumonia. Since then heart transplants became a common procedure around the world and improved and lengthened the lives of about 40 000 patients.
On 25 November 1974 Barnard again provided a world first by being the first person to do a twin heart operation. With this procedure the patient’s damaged heart is not removed, but a donor heart is implanted to assist the impaired heart. The patient thus had two hearts. This technique, however, was not as successful as Barnard had hoped it would be.
A decade after the first heart transplant, donor hearts were rare. This compelled Barnard to find other alternatives. His concern for his patients gave rise to another sensational first for Barnard. In order to keep a patient alive for longer in the hope that a donor heart would become available, Barnard transplanted a monkey heart in an Italian patient in November 1977. The patient died, because, according to him, the heart was too small. He tried it once more with a larger chimpanzee heart, but again the patient died. He abandoned the procedure, because even though the heart was the correct size, the body rejected it due to the difference in tissue.
Christiaan Neethling Barnard was born on 8 November 1922 in Beaufort West, South Africa and died on 2 September 2001. His father was a missionary minister and Chris was one of four sons. His brother Adam died at the age of five of heart failure.
He was first married to Allette Gertuida Louw and the couple had two children Deirdre (1950) and and Andre (1951). In 1969 he divorced his wife and remarried wealthy Barbara Zoellner. They had two children Frederick who was born in 1972 and Christiaan Junior born in 1974, Things were not going to well between him and his wife and he divorced Barbara in 1982. He remarried for the third time to Karin Setzkorn in 1988 and she gave him two children Armin born in 1990 and Lara in 1997. Sadly this marriage also ended in divorce in 2000.
Because his father struggled financially Barnard decided to study medicine in order to help his father financially. In 1953 he obtained his medical degree from the University of Cape Town. From 1953 to 1956 he worked at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. There he discovered that intestinal athrepsy, a congenital opening in the intestine, is caused by insufficient blood supply to the foetus during pregnancy. This defect inevitably caused the death of the patient. He developed a surgical procedure to correct this defect.
In 1958 he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Here his interest in cardiopulmonary surgery started. After his doctorate studies he returned to Groote Schuur hospital. He developed a new artificial heart valve and for the first time started doing open heart surgery in South Africa. He also started experimenting intensively with heart transplants on dogs. This led to his pioneer surgery in 1967.
In 1983 Barnard had to retire due to arthritis. Up until his retirement he was head of the cardiology unit of Groote Schuur hospital. This unit is still regarded as one of the best.
Barnard received numerous honourary doctorates, honourary professorships, diplomas, awards and medals from various countries and institutions across the world. He published fifteen books including his two autobiographies Christiaan Barnard: One Life (1970) and The Second Life (1993). He often lectured and was involved with several social welfare organisations collecting money for children who cannot afford the high cost of heart surgery.
South Africa’s heart pioneer died during an asthma attack in 2001.
- Christiaan Neethling Barnard (Photograph courtesy of Ruphin Coudyzer FPPSA – www.ruphin.com)
Source: SESA (Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa)