South-African surgeon best known for performing the world’s first heart transplant in 1967. The patient, Louis Washkansky, who was suffering from diabetes and an incurable heart disease, was provided the heart of Denise Darvall, a young woman who had been in a fatal accident.
Though Washkansky died just 18 days after the surgery, the world’s first heart transplant was a major break-through for medical science.
