2019-12-03 Tue

The heart had been equated with the soul of human beings! Transplanting the heart is like resuscitating a dying soul! The medical miracle that happened on 3rd December 1967 astonished the whole world, when Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first human to a human heart transplant, placing Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

The man of the honor was 53-year-old Louis Washkansky a South African grocer dying from chronic heart disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. After Washkansky’s surgery, he was given drugs to suppress his immune system and keep his body from rejecting the heart.

However, and 18 days later he died from double pneumonia. Despite the setback, Washkansky’s new heart had functioned normally until his death. This first heart transplant was the world’s most widely reported medical event ever. Transplanting the heart was perceived as ‘the surgical equivalent of the ascent of Everest’.

The stamp shown above is the INR 5 stamp issued in the year 1996. The stamp is inscribed with the name of the country along with “100 years of cardiac surgery” and years 1896 and 1996 at the bottom. The stamp was issued to celebrate 100 years of Cardiac surgery showing the first RV repair on the left side and a heart transplant on the right side.

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