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SUMMARY:'A year of resurrection\, a year of grotesque horror': heart trans
 plants and the media in 1968 - Ayesha Nathoo (Clare Hall\, Cambridge)
DTSTART:20071115T163000Z
DTEND:20071115T180000Z
UID:TALK8195@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
DESCRIPTION:In December 1967 a relatively unknown surgeon\, Christiaan Bar
 nard\, transplanted the heart of a young\, female road-accident victim int
 o a 54-year-old Cape Town grocer\, Louis Washkansky. The operation receive
 d media attention that was unprecedented for a medical undertaking\, trans
 forming Barnard and Washkansky into international celebrities overnight. A
 lthough Washkansky lived for only 18 days with his new heart\, in 1968 ove
 r 100 transplants were performed worldwide. Most of the recipients died wi
 thin days or weeks of their revolutionary surgery and from the end of 1969
  the procedure was all but abandoned for a decade. In the already turbulen
 t period of the late 1960s\, human heart transplantation proved to be an e
 thical minefield that challenged existing notions of life and death. I arg
 ue that the public nature of this controversial surgical feat fundamentall
 y changed medical-media relations and directly affected the outcome of the
  heart-transplant enterprise. This talk aims to shed new light on arguably
  the most famous operation of the twentieth century\, and its repercussion
 s for media and medical history.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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