The miracle of medicine
The Boston Globe | By Diane Speare Triant
PHOTOGRAPH OF BABB PAINTING FROM THE HARVARD MEDICAL LIBRARY IN THE FRANCIS A. COUNTWAY LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
“The First Successful Kidney Transplantation,†by Joel Babb
EVOLUTION, BIRTH CONTROL, EMBRYONIC STEM-CELL RESEARCH, END OF LIFE: From Darwin’s time to our own, the ethical and religious questions raised by science have occupied newspaper headlines, polarized politics, and ignited family disputes. Today, American culture is as divisive as ever, and many of us have come to consider the scientific and spiritual spheres irreconcilable. But 58 years ago, a medical pioneer facing similar challenges found a way to create harmony from dissonance.
On December 23, 1954, a plastic surgeon named Joseph E. Murray stepped into Operating Room 2 at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s). He was about to attempt an organ transplant, a surgery never before successful in humans.
As a young physician serving in World War II, Murray had devoted himself to helping burned soldiers, using skin grafts to save lives. “I was interested in the biology of transplants and why it is that a piece of skin grafted from one’s own self will live, but from another [person] won’t,†he told me years ago. He became riveted on a case in which a skin graft between identical twins wasn’t rejected. Murray returned to the Brigham eager to understand why.
In 1954, a patient experiencing final-stage renal failure â€" 23-year-old Richard Herrick â€" was referred to the hospital. Richard had a healthy identical twin, Ronald, who was willing to give his brother one of his kidneys. Murray wanted to do the surgery.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
PHOTOGRAPH OF BABB PAINTING FROM THE HARVARD MEDICAL LIBRARY IN THE FRANCIS A. COUNTWAY LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
“The First Successful Kidney Transplantation,†by Joel Babb
EVOLUTION, BIRTH CONTROL, EMBRYONIC STEM-CELL RESEARCH, END OF LIFE: From Darwin’s time to our own, the ethical and religious questions raised by science have occupied newspaper headlines, polarized politics, and ignited family disputes. Today, American culture is as divisive as ever, and many of us have come to consider the scientific and spiritual spheres irreconcilable. But 58 years ago, a medical pioneer facing similar challenges found a way to create harmony from dissonance.
On December 23, 1954, a plastic surgeon named Joseph E. Murray stepped into Operating Room 2 at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s). He was about to attempt an organ transplant, a surgery never before successful in humans.
As a young physician serving in World War II, Murray had devoted himself to helping burned soldiers, using skin grafts to save lives. “I was interested in the biology of transplants and why it is that a piece of skin grafted from one’s own self will live, but from another [person] won’t,†he told me years ago. He became riveted on a case in which a skin graft between identical twins wasn’t rejected. Murray returned to the Brigham eager to understand why.
In 1954, a patient experiencing final-stage renal failure â€" 23-year-old Richard Herrick â€" was referred to the hospital. Richard had a healthy identical twin, Ronald, who was willing to give his brother one of his kidneys. Murray wanted to do the surgery.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
Comments
Post a Comment