Barnard, Christiaan Neethling (1922–2001)

South African surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant in 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. The 54-year-old patient lived for 18 days.

Barnard also discovered that intestinal artresia – a congenital deformity in the form of a hole in the small intestine – is the result of an insufficient supply of blood to the fetus during pregnancy. It was a fatal defect before he developed the corrective surgery.

Barnard was born in Beaufort West, Cape Province, and studied at the University of Cape Town. He held academic and research posts at that university and Groote Schuur Hospital until 1983.

Barnard's early research involved experiments with heart transplants in dogs, and in December 1967 he first applied the technique to a human patient. Surgically this transplant was a success, but the patient died from double pneumonia – probably contracted as a result of the immunosuppressive drugs administered to him to prevent his body rejecting the new heart.

Open-heart surgery was first introduced in South Africa by Barnard, and he further developed cardiothoracic surgery by new designs for artificial heart valves.