The history of heart and heart-lung transplantation

The current success of heart and heart-lung transplantation is grounded in a long progression of experimental and clinical advances. Beginning with an isolated heart transplant performed as a technical exercise in 1905, slowly accumulated experimental efforts yielded solutions to problems involving technique, recipient and graft protection, post-transplant function and immunology, and provided a foundation for subsequent clinical applications. Clinical studies augmented these observations and addressed legal and logistic issues involved in human transplantation.