Suddenly he shot to fame, worldwide. One man from South Africa, with his flashy smile. In a time that South Africa was a state in growing isolation one man found his way to the front pages of newspapers and magazines worldwide. His name was Christiaan Barnard (1922 – 2001). He was a surgeon at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. On the third of December, 1967 he performed a heart transplant, the first in recorded history. The patient who received a secondhand heart passed away 18 days later, due to another disease. A month later a second transplant took place, the patient lived for 19 months with the transplanted heart. 

A biography of this famous surgeon has been written by James Styan, from Cape Town. Read more about the Afrikaner language version of this book here.