Give the Gift of Life
Tuesday, December 21st, 2004 at 5:05 pm
Give the gift of life this Holiday Season… Sign up to be an organ donor!
Fifty years of kidney transplants
First donor remembers his role in medical historyBELGRADE, Maine (AP) — Fifty years ago, Ronald Herrick wasn't thinking about making medical history that would one day lead to saving countless lives. He just wanted to save one life — his brother's.
He said it took him no time at all to agree to donate a kidney to his dying twin, Richard. But that 51/2-hour operation on December 23, 1954, would not only keep Richard alive for eight more years, it would lead to thousands of kidney transplants and ultimately the transplant of other organs from the heart to the liver. Herrick's doctor would win a Nobel Prize.
"It was a start but they've done an awful lot of transplants since then," said Herrick, a soft-spoken man who accepts his place in the annals of medical breakthroughs but plays down his place in history.
More than 400,000 transplants have been performed in the United States since the first successful one 50 years ago at what's now known as Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. More than 25,000 occur each year in the United States.
More at CNN.com
Email to Friend
Print
Permalink
Filed under: 
