Doctor Christian Barnard performed the first successful transplant of which human organ?

On December 3, 1967, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky received the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

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. Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical operation.

Numerous scientists and physicians had worked towards performing this type of surgery for a long time. The discovery of antibody and antigens by Paul Ehrlich and the blood-typing methods implemented by Karl Landsteiner's and Elie Metchnikoff's theory of host resistance were the first groundbreaking discoveries that gave surgeons a better understanding of the human body and eventually led to the performing of organ transplant surgeries.