Donor in 1st successful transplant dies
Ronald Lee Herrick, who donated a kidney to his twin brother 56 years ago in the world’s first successful organ transplant, has died at 79.
Ronald passed away on Monday in the Augusta Rehabilitation Centre, a hospital in Maine, New England, following complications from heart surgery in October.
He donated a kidney to his identical twin, Richard, in a 5.5-hour operation on 23, December 1954. The surgery kept him alive for eight years.
The pioneering surgery at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital proved that transplants were possible and led to thousands of other successful kidney transplants and ultimately the transplant of other organs.
"This operation rejuvenated the whole field of transplantation," said Dr. Joseph Murray, the lead surgeon in the transplant operation.
Murray, who is now 91 and living in Wellesley, Massachusetts, won the 1990 Nobel Prize for his brilliant work.
"We hadn’t realized how important it was going to turn out to be. We were interested in helping one person, one patient," Murray further explained.
Richard Herrick, the first human to human transplant receiver, made a full recovery, married his recovery room nurse and later became the father of two children. He died of a heart attack eight years later.
Herrick, a math teacher who lived 56 years more, remained humble about his contribution to the field of medicine for the rest of his life.
Source: presstv.ir
