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Legal Problems In Donations Of Human Tissues To Medical Science, Author Unidentified

Vanderbilt Law Review

On December 3, 1967, the first human heart transplant was performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in Capetown, South Africa.' Although the achievement received a great deal of attention, it is clear that its principal import is in the perfection of new surgical techniques, rather than in conceptual innovation. Organ transplants have been performed for many years, from the simplest, a blood transfusion,to more complex and hazardous therapeutics, such as skin grafts and kidney transplants. Anatomically, the heart is no more important or necessary an organ than the kidney or the liver, but common subjective notions of the heart's central function …