The beginning of organ transplantation: Emerich Ullmann (1861-1937)

Between 1880 and 1930 there was a rapid surge in experiments with tissue transplantation, initially mainly of endocrine tissues (thyroid, parathyroid, testicles, ovary, adrenals etc.) with the aim of replacing endocrine function. Emerich Ullmann (1861-1937), who was born in Pecs, Hungary and worked his whole life as a surgeon in Vienna was the first to perform transplantations of solid organs in the modern sense of medicine. During 1899 and 1900 he conducted several experiments with intestinal transplantation and must be regarded as the father of intestinal transplantation--a hitherto unknown fact. He then moved to kidney transplantation and on March 7, 1902 he demonstrated a dog with a functioning kidney graft anastomized to the collar vessels with urine dripping off the ureter sutured to the skin of the neck in the lecture hall of the Society of Physicians in Vienna. Ullmann was the first to perform kidney auto-, homo- and heterotransplantations and in 1902 also tried--unsuccessfully--to perform the first human kidney transplantation using a pig kidney which he anastomized into the cubital region of a women with end stage renal disease. Ullmann also performed tissue transplantations (skin, testicles, ovaries) and made other scientific discoveries and described several novel surgical techniques. Finally, in 1914 he wrote the first monograph on the state of the art of transplantation medicine, a booklet on "Tissue and Organ Transplantation" summarizing the surprisingly extensive experience in transplantation medicine of his time. With the obvious immunologic barriers to transplantation, the first "technical surgical period" of transplantation came to an end around the times of Ullmann's death and clinical transplantation was not to be revived before effective means of immunosuppression became available in the 1950s.