12 juin 1968 - Britain's first heart transplant

Description:

South Africa-born surgeon Donald Ross carries out Britain’s first heart transplant at the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone, London, on May 3 1968.
Ross leads a team of 18 doctors and nurses to operate on the unnamed 45-year-old man in the seven-hour procedure. The donor was a 26-year-old labourer called Patrick Ryan. The British operation is the 10th heart transplant to be undertaken in the world since Christiaan Barnard carried out the first in Cape Town, South Africa, in December 1967. The patient dies after 46 days from an associated infection and only six transplants are carried out over the next 10 years for fear of failure.